When Cpl.
Sean Libbey took his cruiser in for service Monday, he was surprised to find
out more than his oil had been changed.
A life was changed.
And Cpl. Libbey helped.
“It was nice
to hear,” said the 19-year Collier County Sheriff’s Office veteran. “It was one
of those good stories.”
Cpl. Libbey
was signing paperwork at Tamiami Ford Quick Lane in East Naples when an
employee recognized his name. Service adviser Jeff Houser told Cpl. Libbey that
he had been Houser’s daughter’s DARE instructor.
“I told him
to keep that program going,” recalled Houser, referring to the Drug Abuse
Resistance Education program. “As a smoker for 22 years, my daughter got me to
stop because of what he taught her.”
The DARE
curriculum is designed to educate youngsters about the dangers and consequences
of drug and alcohol use, while encouraging student self-esteem. About 3,000
fifth-graders go through the 10-week program each year in Collier County. Sheriff Kevin Rambosk serves on DARE America's prestigious International Law Enforcement Advisory Board and is committed to keeping the DARE curriculum in Collier schools.
Mazie Houser
learned about the dangers of tobacco use through her participation in the DARE
program at Vineyards Elementary School, where Cpl. Libbey was assigned as a
sheriff’s youth relations deputy.
“We don’t pull any punches when it comes to tobacco use; it’s in-your-face information,” said Cpl. Libbey, a DARE instructor for 13 years now assigned to Estates Elementary School. “We really drive home the message that if you know someone who smokes, you want them to quit. You want them to be there when you graduate, when you get married . . . to see all of these great things that may happen to you.”
“We don’t pull any punches when it comes to tobacco use; it’s in-your-face information,” said Cpl. Libbey, a DARE instructor for 13 years now assigned to Estates Elementary School. “We really drive home the message that if you know someone who smokes, you want them to quit. You want them to be there when you graduate, when you get married . . . to see all of these great things that may happen to you.”
Mazie took
that message to heart. Every day for five months straight she urged her father,
a former firefighter, to quit.
“I really
wanted him to stop,” she said. “I didn’t want him to die from lung cancer, lung
disease or heart disease.”
The turning
point came when Houser, 41, said he returned from a smoke break to find his
daughter alone in a room crying.
“She said
she’d rather have a grumpy dad than no dad at all,” Houser recalled. “That’s
when it hit me.”
Houser told
his daughter he would try to quit, but needed her help. He came up with a plan
in which he would cut his three-quarters-of-a-pack-a-day habit by half each
week for five weeks.
Mazie held
her father accountable, monitoring the number of cigarettes he smoked each day.
“It got to
the point where I didn’t smoke at work,” Houser said.
At the end
of five weeks Houser was done with cigarettes.
That was a
year and a half ago.
Since giving
up smoking Houser said he has “renewed energy” and feels “a lot better.”
Mazie, now
11 and a sixth-grader at North Naples Middle School, has noticed a difference
too. She said her dad used to spend a lot of time sitting in his recliner
watching TV. Now he spends his free time outside with her and her 9-year-old brother
playing baseball and doing other fun activities with them.
Houser said
he’s proof the DARE program makes a difference.
“Just keep
up the great work,” he said. “Even if it helps only one person, the program is
worth it.”
Cpl. Libby
said his routine trip for an oil change won’t be one he forgets.
“It was nice
to hear that we are not only helping the kids but parents too,” he said.
