09/20/2016
| An Important Announcement from 3on3forJoey |
To our family, friends and supporters of 3on3forJoey,
We cannot thank you enough for all of your love and support over the last seven years. Even as I write this, we truly cannot believe Joey is really gone. We will always struggle with the reality that he is no longer with us. We started 3on3forJoey to help us channel that grief into something meaningful and to keep Joey’s memory alive. We were so blessed to have the support from our loved ones and our community to help us emotionally and financially when Joey passed away. We know that not everyone has that kind of a support system, a pair of arms to wrap around us. We knew that the funds raised for 3on3forJoey would be used to help others who are experiencing a sudden crisis, but who don’t always have that kind of support. We never imagined that so many people would need our help. Since 2009, we’ve been blessed to help over 125 families. To date, we have never turned a family away.
We want to thank everyone for your ongoing support and to inform you about our new direction. Most of you know that Joey passed away from a drug overdose. To watch someone you love so deeply suffer from addiction is heart wrenching. Then to watch that person lose their battle because of the addiction is unbearable. All along, we knew we also wanted to put our energy towards the substance abuse/ addiction crisis. Substance abuse (addiction) is a serious problem in Orange County and the statistics keep climbing, our youth are abusing drugs and alcohol, becoming addicted and dying on a record scale. Because we want to bring more awareness to this crisis, and try to educate our youth and their parents on the dangers of drugs, we are excited to announce our merger with California Youth Services (CYS), an organization that works with public and private schools, law enforcement/probation and the courts across Orange County.
CYS is a non profit organization, led by Executive Director Margie Diaz, and started by our very good friends, Gil and Flo Mulhere. Gil and Flo also lost their son, Kevin, to a drug overdose in 2002. Kevin and Joey both graduated from Santa Margarita Catholic High School in 2000, both of them were great kids, motivated to be successful in life, and loved their families. Both of these great boys tried so hard to beat their addictions and both failed. The Mulhere’s were right by our side when we lost Joey because they knew the pain of losing a child. We have supported each others’ efforts in keeping our boys’ memories alive. We have been to CYS’s fundraisers and they have not missed a 3on3forJoey tournament. We finally decided to join forces and merge our efforts together. CYS believes in substance abuse education first. Their programs include JADE: a drug and alcohol education course for youth and their parents; and Decisions: a legal awareness program also for youth and their parents. CYS also provides counseling services and is often fighting on the frontlines when a person falls back into their addiction. For more information about CYS please visit their website at www.calyouthservices.org. By joining forces with CYS, 3on3forJoey will be able to provide families in need of education and services with reduced fees and scholarships. We will still be able to help families in crisis with our Joey gifts, but we will also be focusing more attention to the issues that surround substance abuse.
Stay tuned for information about the 8th annual 3on3forJoey Basketball Tournament. Moving forward, please make all donations to California Youth Services. All donations are tax deductible through the non-profit's 501(c)3 Tax ID: 20-1051272.
Once again, we cannot thank you enough for working with us to keep Joey’s memory alive, he would be so proud to see all of the good we are doing in our community.
With gratitude,
The Campbell Family
