My Love For Children and A Growing Epidemic

I have a love of children, one can say I love everyone’s kids as if they were my own. My own children’s friends often call me mom even to this day, even though they are grown. I don’t mind though because kids are my life. If I had it my way each child would ace grammar school, excel in high school and go to college, the college of their choice, whether it be through financial aid, scholarship or student loan. They would all come out with degrees in fields that they would truly enjoy because the kids today are our leaders of tomorrow. The senior in high school can be the President of the United States in 10 years. Sounds promising right? Well, I live in a city, where an epidemic of wanting to work summer jobs, working after school to buy a car and the latest fashions has just about disappeared and been replaced with finding the fastest way to get high off of drugs and alcohol, often using fake IDs to get into bars. It is sickening to read the papers to hear about the growing number of kids, robbing pharmacies for narcotics, buying them off the streets for as much as $60.00 a pill and drinking on top of it and then getting into the car that was handed to them and dying in an accident. I am sure that they thought it would never happen to them, because if adults drink we all know it can make us more courageous amd invincible, but to lose so many children, whose lives never had a chance to begin because of drugs and alcohol is awful. The families are left behind with pain and sorrow never to see their child and sometimes children again. My question is what is the government doing to prevent this from happening? Ok the increase the drinking age, they get fake IDs, they want drugs they go to certain Drs and get them or even from their own parents medicine cabinets. When I was a child I was never given narcs for pain. Now as an adult and with legit problems that do require them, I have trouble getting them and have to show tons of ID but I also have them in a lock box, which is hidden so no one can get at them. I think it is because there is a lack of contructive things to do for teens today after school. They ae given way to many things, without having to earn them in a lot of cases and it saddens me to see teens becoming addicted to drugs and alcohol so young. We need strong leadership in the future since the country is in a mess right now for sure so I got to thinking about opening a non profit center for kids, after school for young kids, homework first, then specialties such as arts and crafts, cooking, sports, life skills, and enlisting teens from high schools to volunteer their time to teach the younger kids how to do these things. The qualifications for them to volunteer, drug and alcohol free and a c+ or higher in all subjects. The center would be open 7 days. Also 2 nights for Adults who needed help for GED or other skills….maybe this would help a few teens and in turn a few more. What do you think about this issue and idea?