Apollo Campaigns for Drug-Free Community

An Apollo-based organization geared toward promoting drug-free communities has a new tool for outreach.

Residents Against Illicit Drugs (RAID) is launching a new campaign that will reach out to more residents of the Kiski Valley with vital information that can literally help save lives.

RAID’s members are to begin distributing literature kiosks to Medial Practices, Rehabilitation Centers and Chiropractor’s Office up and down the Kiskiminetas River.

With the help of funding from the Armstrong Indiana Clarion Drug and Alcohol Commission, literature boxes containing information on various topics of Drug Addiction will start showing up in waiting rooms throughout the Kiski Valley in the weeks to come. Each pamphlet will also contain a brochure introducing RAID’s volunteer-based organization and the services they offer individuals or families facing an addiction crisis.

RAID Chairman and Apollo Mayor, Jeff Held, founded his organization only about 18 months ago. But in this short period, he said RAID members have been waging a war on the local drug scene.

Armstrong County Coroner, and RAID member, Brian Myers, recently reported at a town hall meeting in Burrell Township that the County’s death toll relating to drug overdoses is at an unprecedented level that could easily put Armstrong at the top of the list of counties in Pennsylvania on a per capita basis.

“For 2016, Pennsylvanians have been dyeing at a rate of 10 per day from drug overdoses. Mostly heroin and Schedule 2 medications in the opiate family,” Held said. “This has been called the worst epidemic in all of humanity. If ISIS was killing this many Pennsylvanians each day, we would be at war at a level never before seen in our history. Well, taking into consideration that all opiates, including heroin, comes from the opiate poppy grown in the fields of Afghanistan, it is easy to see how America’s epidemic is funding terror throughout the world!”

Team RAID, as they like to be called, is on the front lines in local neighborhoods, hosting information workshops, providing training and now distributing life-saving information.

In October, RAID participated in ChristStock - held in Kittanning’s Riverfront Park – and had a table at Lenape Technical School’s Community Awareness Fair in Manor Township at the end of that month.

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