Publisher’s note: This is a corrected version of a story which first ran in last week’s Journal.
Darien Marion-Burton is about ready for the teen café taking place at Buzz Café Sept. 15.
It will be the first in a monthly series of events for teens to come together and talk about substance abuse among their peers. It’s also part of the grassroots effort spearheaded earlier this spring by the local Citizens Council to raise awareness and find solutions around this issue.
Darien, a senior at Oak Park and River Forest High School, jumped at the chance to host the event at Buzz, where he waits tables and works as a cashier. The Buzz is at 905 S. Lombard Ave. The event will be from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
“I knew I had to do this,” said the 17-year-old.
He knows a little something – make that, a lot – about organizing. Darien is head athletic manager at OPRF for the football and basketball teams.
Along with organizing meetings for other team managers, he films practices and does other “behind the scenes” activities. Darien admits not being that good in sports but wanted to be involved with athletics at the high school. He’s also a Huskie Kick-off mentor for freshmen every school year, and a co-event planner for the Youth Board of the Oak Park Symphony Orchestra.
When Darien heard about the teen café idea around school, he stepped up to help organize it. He’s still working on an itinerary for the café and what the set-up will be. There are two things he knows for sure will occur: it’ll be for teens only, and spoken word poetry will be involved. Though not a spoken word artist himself, Darien loves the art-form and going to poetry events at OPRF.
“I think students respond better to something like that than listening to speakers. You can come and hang out with your friends,” he said. “You can get away from your teachers and your problems; just come together and hang out for two hours.”
Darien says proudly that he doesn’t do drugs; he does, though, know of students who do. Darien said he never wants to do drugs because he doesn’t want to harm himself or his family.
But at school, he describes it as a “silent peer pressure.” It’s not that kids are doing drugs because peers are telling them to, Darien explained; it’s a more subtle yet still influential message.
“I know that there is a huge drug problem at the school. I hear kids talking about it while I’m walking down the hall. It’s really annoying for someone who doesn’t do drugs,” he said. “I think it forces kids to either be outcasts in the school or to do them, and that really sucks. They’re talking about it so much, it’s like if they know you don’t do drugs, they’ll laugh and be like, ‘oh you don’t do it?’ It just gets to a point where they say ‘I don’t want to be an outcast.'”
Tuesday night was the first of a parent café series organized by adults; this initial one took place at Unity Temple. Some OPRF parents, Darien said, are in denial about their own kids’ drug problems.
“Most parents don’t want to talk about what their kids are doing. But if you can’t say it, then you can’t help.”