Franklin High Students Win Award from DA

Franklin High School’s peer leaders have earned a $1,500 grant from Norfolk District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey to support their drug, alcohol and dangerous behavior prevention, intervention, and education work.

The grant was one of seven awarded by District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey at his Peer Leadership Conference, held at Patriot Place in November.

“Each of these teams earned a perfect score in last year’s Team Rival competition, which my outreach staff coordinates to connect Norfolk County high schools with local and regional prevention opportunities,” District Attorney Morrissey said. “In addition to attending last year’s conference, young leaders encouraged their peers to take the Arbella Insurance ‘Distractology Training’ addressing distracted driving, and to create TicTok videos supporting kindness and respect.”

Morrissey said that the coming year’s competition includes connecting students with FEMA’s “Until Help Arrives” emergency training, Distractology, and AAA’s “Shifting Gears” safe driving program. “We were able to push more than $10,000 in grants out to schools that demonstrated their dedication to prevention work at the local level.” The grants were drawn from funds seized from drug traffickers and dealers, then ordered forfeited by a judge following a successful criminal prosecution. Yearly challenges are chosen based on risk factors for new drivers identified through the DA’s office caseload.

“We take the money that judges have identified as the proceeds of destructive criminal activity and repurpose those dollars to education and prevention that will make our communities stronger,” District Attorney Morrissey said. “But that only works because we have strong community partners like Franklin High School doing the work on the ground.”