Written by Marie Kane |
Photos by Kim Inglis and Kyle Neumann
THP Project Purple is back! From September 30th to October 6th, Morgan held the first THP Project Purple event of the school year. This week was also known as, “Purple Week.”
You may be wondering why we are having this event again. Sophomore Rebecca Cockley, president of this program stated that “We are doing this again as a fundraiser for THP Project Purple cloud and to send students to a leadership conference during the summer.” There is a difference between the first event in the beginning of the school year and this week’s event. Rebecca said, “The beginning of the year the purple week was to advertise that Chris Herren was visiting the school and to make kids aware of drug abuse. This week is the purple initiative week, the five year anniversary of THP Project Purple. And this week is to advertise the dodgeball tournament.”
Instructional Aide Sue Cockley, one of the staff members for this event, states that “This is the fifth year anniversary of THP Project Purple. Clinton and Morgan have been featured in Chris Herren’s Facebook page, Instagram, and we were also put into their annual report. Clinton earned a star on the map for the Chris Herren project … Every year during this purple week, we are going to have a dodgeball tournament to continue to help our teens’ ‘dodge’ addiction.”
This dodgeball tournament was on Thursday, January 26 in the Morgan gym. Mrs. Cockley states, “At the dodgeball tournament, we raised around $900, and one of the sophomore teams won.” Sophomore Michael Menacho won the basketball, signed by Chris Herren. In the spring, there will be a 5K race for THP Project Purple in Clinton. The date and route are not set yet, but it will be a color run, probably in late May. Senior Autumn Johnson said, “I think it’ll be another great opportunity for our schools and community to come together as one and address the issues of drug abuse and addiction.¨
On Wednesday, January 25 during X-Block, there was a school-wide assembly to 
show a movie on substance abuse. This was hosted by the THP Project Purple committee. The movie was about a boy named Isaac who went to a party, took drugs due to peer pressure, and went to a rehab center to get help with his addiction. His best friend Connor did not get the help that Isaac got in rehab. While Isaac was at this rehab center, Connor overdosed and died. Isaac and his mother went to Connor’s funeral, where Isaac spoke about Connor.After the movie was over. The students and THP Project Purple representative talked about how to keep drugs out of the wrong hands and what our thoughts were after the movie, along with the impact drugs have or had on our families.
Below is a slideshow of photos from the dodgeball tournament.
