By Tim Colwell, Shannon Farrell, and Aimee Ferenz
Last year, Chris Herren appeared at Ocean City High School to speak about his own experiences with substance abuse. Many students say that the assembly was very memorable and effective due to Chris’ personal approach. On Tuesday, January 2nd, the former NBA visited the school system for the second time to launch the program: Project Purple. The Current OC went to the basketball game that night where the new project was launched to talk to Chris about it.
“Well, it all started at a high school in Rhode Island where I spoke, where kids attended the assembly wearing purple T-shirts.” Chris explained to us shortly after the game, “Solid purple shirts, no writing, no name, and they announced themselves as the sober students of their high school. And when the [other] kids started laughing, I felt bad for the kids who announced that, and I decided from that day forward that I was going to start a project for kids in the school system who want to make the right decisions; who want to do the right thing and stand up for themselves against substance abuse. That’s where the idea came from; that was about two years ago and now it’s grown nationally”. When asked what project purple accomplished so far, Chris explained to us that it had accomplished something even that night by bringing the kids together with signs and T-shirts, saying that it was extremely moving for him seeing as it has grown from zero members to seventy-five thousand.
To take part in Project Purple, one can go to the website at goprojectpurple.org as well as a free application for a student’s iPhone or Droid. Project Purple packs can also be sent to a students’ school where they can set up their own portion of the project by calling 401-243-8590 or e-mailing [email protected].