Reality Tour Directors from Across the Nation Emphasize Importance of Program

Pike County Reality Tour director Jill Gamboni outlined the importance of parents attending Reality Tour with their child, while Las Vegas tour director Dr. Charlene Day outlined the importance of the program’s prevention message in her city in a series of March 2021 interviews.

As a member of the Pike County Child Death Review team, Jill Gamboni was seeing firsthand the deadly effects of substance abuse and cited the rampant number of overdose deaths in her community as a catalyst for bringing Reality Tour to the area in 2007.

“It is a very impactful program, especially the dramatic scenes,” Gamboni said. “I have had parents come back to me after years who say they still talk to their kids about what they learned at Reality Tour. I think Reality Tour’s approach is great because it covers the full spectrum of substance abuse.”

On average, Pike county holds four Reality Tour programs per year. Gamboni believes that while it is important for children and teens to attend the program, it is perhaps even more important for parents to attend alongside them.

“Very often the parent needs to hear the message more than the child,” Gamboni said. “Parents don’t understand the full scope of what their kids actually know. It is amazing how much more kids know than their parents about drugs. To me, that was a very surprising factor about Reality Tour.”

Since COVID began, Pike County has not been able to hold any Reality Tour programs. Gamboni emphasized an eagerness to see the program return in Fall 2021 as officials from the Carbon-Monroe-Pike Drug and Alcohol Commission indicate an upward trend in at-home substance abuse in adolescents.

Recently, Reality Tour has made its first appearance in the state of Nevada, and Las Vegas tour director Dr. Charlene Day believes the program is exactly what her city needs to address substance abuse.

“We are called ‘sin city’ for a reason,” Dr. Day said. “This is the place people usually come if they have any sort of vice or addiction. When we say what happens here stays here, that is true. It also stays with the people who live and work here.”

Day pointed to the legalization of gambling, marijuana and prostitution as areas of concern for her community members and explained that when people move to the city to reinvent themselves, they bring their addictions and vices with them, sometimes passing the behaviors along to their children.

While substance abuse has proven to be a daunting issue, Dr. Day expressed enthusiasm about the promise of Reality Tour in Las Vegas.

“When you do prevention, you want to do something that is new, novel, and previously successful,” Dr. Day said. “The fact that this program is evidence-based is paramount to me.”

Reality Tour is getting back on track nationwide after delays and cancellations due to the pandemic. Emails from parents inquiring about the program have been increasing rapidly, and school partners are eager to get the program back into their communities.

There will be a meeting July 13, 6:30 p.m. at Fun Fore All in Cranberry Twp. for volunteers who plan to staff the Mars and Cranberry Reality Tours in the fall. The program is seeking organizations like service clubs to adopt a Reality Tour site for one year to help fill gaps in the volunteer needs.

Reality Tour’s fundraiser is going on now. Sponsors can have signs on the mini-golf course at Fun Fore All during the Aug. 1-14 fundraising event. Fun Passes purchased online from Aug. 1-14 using code REALITY will receive a discount and part of the proceed go to Reality Tour. For info email RealityTour@candleinc.org. n

About CANDLE, Inc. Reality Tour

CANDLE, Inc. is a 501c3 nonprofit committed to presenting reality-based drug prevention programs and initiatives that engage and educate parent, child, and the community at large in a manner that reveals the true risks of drug abuse and experimentation and identifies emerging drug preferences as they evolve.

CANDLE, Inc. Reality Tour

100 Brugh Ave., Butler, PA 16001 www.RealityTour.org | (724) 679-1788 Contact: Norma Norris, Executive Director at Reality Tour (724) 679-1788 NormaNorris@candleinc.org

Photo Caption: Principal Adam Kostewicz of Mars Centennial greets a student at the Mars Reality Tour