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The March Continues

by Stack Kenny

In the spirit of those words, local participants gathered for the Fourth Annual Ducker Road Community Involvement Council (DRCIC) March against Drugs. With a stiff breeze and an occasionally threatening sky above them, more than one hundred people, with an inspired group of teens and pre-teens chanting “No More Drugs” in the lead, marched ten miles from Ducker Road in Arden to Hendersonville Road and back to show their support for the work of the DRCIC.

The enthusiastic group involved everyone from young mothers pushing their babies in strollers to 75-year-old James Collins, a deacon from St. John Baptist Church in Fletcher. Dressed in running shoes and an extra-large “Obama for President” T-shirt, Collins said simply, “I’m marching for the kids. It’s about the kids.”

This message of hope was repeated throughout the day. From the early-morning opening prayer offered by the Reverend Hershel Wright’s, who inspired everyone with his words and song, to the conversations repeated by marchers and planners alike, the message was clear: it’s about saving the kids from the ravages of drug abuse.

This is also a testimony to the value of a community’s taking care of its own problems by not waiting for a complacent bureaucracy to come to its aid but instead attempting to address the issues that threaten the quality and very existence of people’s lives. In this case, the issue is the possibility of drug abuse overwhelming the small and intimate collection of homes and families on lower Ducker Rd.

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Residents and supporters of the Ducker Rd. community march down
Hendersonville Rd. in the Arden community.

As Asheville City Councilman Carl Mumpower stated in his brief remarks to the crowd, “Generations are being robbed of their future by drugs, stealing whole families, stealing whole neighborhoods. The Ducker Road Project is the model for any community who wants to take back their neighborhood.”

“A crisis unattended will become a crisis out of control.”

These are the words of Cookie Mills, leader and founder of the DRCIC, as he addressed rally participants before the march. Four years ago, Mills called for a community meeting on Ducker Road to voice his concerns that the neighborhood where he had lived all his life was no longer safe.

“When I was a kid,” Mills said, “I used to roll tires down Ducker Road and play all day long. Then I looked up years later and there were no kids playing outside. It was because drug dealers had taken over. I was tired of complaining and decided to do something about it.”

After twenty six people surprised him by showing up for the first meeting, Mills knew he wasn’t alone; together they formed the DRCIC, with a mission to shut down the Ducker Road drug houses and make the neighborhood safe again for the children in the community. Four years later they have effectively shut down five houses operating in the open-air drug market, all within two-tenths of a mile from the house where Mills grew up.

When asked about his methods, Mills admits he has no background in community organizing or activism. “I just did what I know how to do. I talked to people. We talked to individuals. We talked to the drug dealers. I took six to eight dealers out to lunch. We told them, ‘No way!’ We passed out lists of the dealers’ names in the community. We took license plate numbers from the cars of the buyers coming down Ducker Road. We took pictures of people coming and going. We put up cameras. We got in touch with the landlords and got them to issue eviction notices. We just kept trying.”

Inside a very short period of time, between fifteen and twenty drug dealers had given up their operations on Ducker Road. Mills says, “Now, the kids are back up on swings and trampolines, having a great time.”

“It’s up to us to make a change!”

Cookie Mills wasn’t content to just shut down the drug activity in the neighborhood and leave it there. He realizes that drug abuse is also a symptom of the bigger problems the community faces: poverty and hopelessness, government neglect and joblessness, especially for those felons coming out of jail, many of them former drug dealers who want to turn their lives around. After cleaning up Ducker Road, it became obvious the DRCIC needed to address these problems. The group decided to continue its work by presenting a prevention and education program to help discourage younger kids from entering into a life of drugs.

Understanding that peer pressure on children is intense to try drugs, Mills says, “We put together a package we bring to local schools during lunch time. We set up a table of real-life material, pictures of autopsies, overdoses, caskets. Kids are pretty smart these days and very receptive. We just tell them the truth. We have tee shirts for them showing the results of drug abuse.”

One of many such tee shirts worn on the march read on the front, “Drugs Will Take You at Any Age…” and then on the back, “To An Early Grave.”

For those unfortunate people who have gotten mixed up in the drug culture and are now paying the consequences, the DRCIC is reaching out in a series of attempts to help them change their lives. The group realizes how difficult it is for recovering addicts to achieve success without housing, education, and job placement and puts strong emphasis on promoting these basic needs. The Mills family have taken in more than one recovering addict themselves, including one young woman addicted and out on her own since she was twelve years old. Mills considers her one of the community’s success stories.

“In seven months,” he says, “she turned it all around, got a job and a license, and was reunited with her child that had been taken away.”

Tammy Mehl, whose family has been influenced dramatically by drug abuse, stated directly, “When you have a drug addict in your family, it affects every aspect of life. Every day is about lies, manipulation and stealing.”

Mehl became involved with the DRCIC after her home had been robbed dozens of times by drug addicts in the area. She is now working with Mills to establish 501(c)3 status for DRCIC, enabling the group to apply for funding and grants for job placement.

For his part, Cookie Mills is trying to set up a program for returning felons to find jobs in construction and landscaping. He has hired several recovering addicts for his own business, ICAN COVE Properties, building affordable housing units in the neighborhood. His business motto is “Believe in your Dreams” and his ultimate goal is to create two or three construction crews of former felons and recovering addicts, who “working as a family, starting with a shovel and finishing with the hardwood floors, can learn the value of honest work, and the pride and bragging rights that go along with it.”

“With love, persistency and a lot of heart…”

As the marchers returned to Ducker Road, the afternoon sun burned brightly, and they were greeted by the soulful sounds of the Chuck Beattie Blues Band. A large banner on the street read Drug Awareness Block Party, and the empty lot being used for the party was filled with huge inflatable slides and a massive water slide for the kids. Under a series of canvas canopies DRCIC volunteers offered barbeque, soft drinks, snow cones, and cotton candy. People signed up for raffles, and a cakewalk would eventually bring the kids down from the slides. Off to the side, volunteer Sean White, a recovering addict, flipped hamburgers on a large grill, sweating in the heat. “I’m no cook. I’ve never done this before,” he said smiling. “But I guess there’s a first for everything.” Amen.

The DRCIC holds meetings every Monday evening. For more information call (828) 243-9915.