Riverhead anti-drug coalition wins federal grant

A Riverhead anti-drug coalition, which works to reduce both drinking and drug abuse by school-age children, has gotten a federal grant that — if funded annually by Congress — will give the coalition $125,000 a year for each of the next five years.

It is the first grant from the federal Drug Free Communities Program made to an agency working in Suffolk’s five East End towns, according to Clare Marie Lundberg, a community preservation specialist working for the Riverhead Community Awareness Program (CAP), which will administer the grant.

The Riverhead Community Coalition for Safe and Drug-free Youth, which does the actual work with students, is a group consisting of schools, the town police, local churches and community service groups, Peconic Bay Medical Center and students and their parents.

The money will be used to fund a variety of community and school outreach programs. One of its best-known is the annual anti-drug march by students from Riverhead’s Pulaski Street School, which has been held for nearly three decades.