Dear Future President,

My name is Kerri, and I am seventeen years old, and one thing that is impacting my environment is alcohol being brought into a dry village. I believe that it is one of the major issues going on in many rural villages of Alaska.

Alcoholism is creating problems in the remote villages of Alaska because it is affecting our young people. It is destroying many lives because students are not getting their education that they need. Teenagers are taking care of kids because parents are drinking and can’t take care of them. While taking care of younger kids, these teenagers are having to miss school.

Young adults are choosing suicide while intoxicated. Three families in my village are dealing with the pain of losing a loved one now. In a small village of around six hundred people, this is a big impact to many family’s lives because everyone knows each other, and we’re all related.

The solution to this would be to have a Village Police Officer (VPO) to find and remove alcohol or any drugs from the village and arrest the people who are dealing them. The problem is there is nobody out there to stand up and speak out against all of these bad influences. Our VPOs need more training to handle this problem. Could you please help our villages come clean.

Sincerely,

Kerri