Families First for Mississippi, in partnership with the Mississippi Department of Human Services, the Mississippi Department of Health and Family Resource Center of North Mississippi, hosted a Combat Risky Choices-Healthy Teens for a Better Mississippi Rally on March 6 at BancorpSouth Arena in Tupelo.
This is the third Healthy Teens Rally, the first being held in September in Jackson and the most recent on Jan. 24 in Biloxi.
Nearly 3,000 students and teachers from grades 9-12, representing more than 15 counties and more than 30 schools — including Eupora High School — attended the event to rally together to encourage positive choices for teens.
Teens interacted with local community colleges, non-profit organizations, major state universities and military branches to influence them to pursue a brighter future.
Antonio Wright, a former football coach and motivational speaker who was paralyzed after a car accident, stressed perspective and one’s attitude in addressing life.
“Perspective is everything,” he said. “If you think things couldn’t be worse, always remember to put things in perspective. It’s not what you go through but how you go through it.”
Families First for Mississippi is expanding Gov. Phil Bryant’s Healthy Teens for a Better Mississippi initiative throughout the state to include educational and innovative programs on healthy choices. The vision of the partnership between Families First and Healthy Teens for a Better Mississippi is to promote healthy choices across a variety of areas that impact the health and future success of youth.
The partnership provides parents with education and training, motivates teens to set goals and teaches teens to make responsible choices in their everyday lives. Issues dealt with include cyberbullying, abstinence education, substance abuse prevention and teen suicide prevention.
“We want to equip our youth with the tools they need to make positive choices so they can live long, healthy lives,” said First Lady Deborah Bryant. “We need more advocates, like Families First for Mississippi, supporting our initiative to help teens stay in school and lead successful careers. This partnership is key to building a better future for the next generation of state leaders.”
The event featured a host of motivational speakers, including former WWE wrestler Ted DiBiase Jr., former NFL player and college All-American Marcus Dupree, motivational speaker and former football coach Antonio Wright, suicide prevention advocate Jody Dyess and musician De’Marco Fomby.
DiBiase told his own empowering story to the crowd.
“I’m happy to be able to share my life experiences of traveling the world, and all these dreams that became by story,” he said. “Sharing the choices I made in the beginning to get me where I am, how that dream was turned into a reality and how I used my position to give back to the community hopefully can help influence some of these kids to make good decisions.”
Dupree described the purpose of Families First for Mississippi and Healthy Teens for a Better Mississippi well, saying, “When we put families first, we put Mississippi first.”
For more information on the program and how to get involved, download the Healthy Teens for a Better Mississippi app on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.
