Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio will be giving an award to Veronica Barrientos, a graduate of the TOUGH Tents program, a fully-simulated Tents jail, on Saturday April 7th at 10am. Veronica’s mother Teresa Barrientos will also be in attendance and is a big part of her daughter’s success in this program. This will mark the one year anniversary since Veronica graduated and she will be available to speak on the drastic change this program has made in her life.
Sheriff Arpaio started this program back in 1996 for valley middle and high school age students and has graduated hundreds of kids since the start of TOUGH tents, some of them only 10 years old. This program has set goals to educate our children about the danger of drugs and alcohol and how to abstain from using them; improve decision making skills, develop positive attitudes, values and behaviors and eliminate criminal behavior.
Sheriff Arpaio says, “Drugs are killing our young people and heroin is becoming the drug of choice.” Arpaio continues, “I will do my part and make every effort to redirect these young lives down a better path.”
National and International TV will be in attendance for this final program before the summer break but will start again in the fall. A special guest appearance by JD Hill who is a former football player for ASU, Buffalo Bills and the Detroit Lions, will also be taking place along with the regular face-to-face time with incarcerated inmates, telling their personal stories of how drugs and bad decisions ruined their lives.