Shippensburg University was awarded the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) CHOICES grant and completed its first combined programming event on Oct. 5.

The NCAA CHOICES grant is awarded to accepted applicant institutes for funding of programs that integrate athletics into campus-wide efforts to reduce alcohol abuse, according to the NCAA's website.

“It was a great process working with Shippensburg to get the grant,” said Tanya Miller, assistant director of sports medicine.

The grant began with the Connection Program and then gained support from the fraternity Tau Kappa, SU President George “Jody” Harpster, the Vice President for Student Affairs Roger Serr, the Women’s Center, Greek Life and the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. Sarah McDowell, Interim Program Director of Connection Alcohol and Other Drug Program was helpful in writing the grant proposal, Miller said.

The grant is a three-year program that provides $30,000 across campus. The combined efforts found out they were accepted in April and used the summer to work on all programming for this year.

“We did a program for all our teams already and would like to do a social norm-ing campaign across campus,” Ashley Grimm, director of athletics, said, “We want to survey all students across campus about alcohol use before we begin.”

The combined programming event “Brandon’s Dad” was brought to the attention of the committee by Assistant Dean of Students and Director of Fraternity and Sorority Life Emilee Danielson.

“I was impacted and hope others will be too. It’s important with the holiday season coming up such as fall break, homecoming and Halloween,” Danielson said.

Brandon’s Dad is an alcohol awareness and effects of DUI program created by the speaker, Vernon Hilyer.

SU Greek organizations and SU athletes attended the program to listen to Hilyer speak about his experience with alcohol.

Vernon lost his son, Brandon Hilyer, on Sept. 9, 2008 when Brandon drove under the influence of alcohol. His car struck an embankment and rolled over before he was launched from the car.

“Brandon was the All-American kid, but alcohol doesn’t have a profile. Anyone can die from it,” Hilyer said.

During his presentation, Hilyer describes Brandon’s downhill spiral because of alcohol and hopes that sharing the story will prevent others from making the same decisions.

“When [Brandon] was 16 he began his life sentence and now his life sentence has become mine,” Vernon said.

Vernon knew that Brandon’s story was one that should be shared. He made many calls and had a difficult time getting started until Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) reached out to him.

MADD asked Vernon to speak at a Victims’ Impact Program for victims of drunk driving and from then on requests for him to speak continued.

“It was different for me because my drunk driver never came home,” Vernon said.

Vernon has spoken at seven schools in Clarion County, Pennsylvania and hopes to continue to spread awareness and his son’s story.

“Every day is one more opportunity to save one more life,” Vernon said. 

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