This year millions of school children around the world will benefit from D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), the highly acclaimed program that gives kids the skills they need to avoid involvement in drugs, gangs, and violence.

D.A.R.E. was founded in 1983 in Los Angeles and has proven so successful that it is now being implemented in 75 percent of our nation's school districts and in more than 43 countries around the world. D.A.R.E. is a police officer-led series of classroom lessons that teaches children from kindergarten through 12th grade how to resist peer pressure and live productive drug and violence-free lives.

In Berlin, the D.A.R.E. Program has been going strong for 27 years. Since 1987, over 6,000 5th grade children from the town have graduated from the Berlin D.A.R.E. Program. Since 1997 the Berlin Police Department has been reinforcing the D.A.R.E. 5th grade program with a 7th grade program at McGee Middle School. The connections made between the D.A.R.E. Officers and the children of Berlin have had a tremendously positive effect on the way children and young adults perceive our police officers and our police department.