The new school year is upon us, and that means the Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey’s (PDFNJ) Fourth Grade Prevention Folder Contest is underway for the 2022-23 school year. Each year, PDFNJ challenges fourth grade students throughout New Jersey to create substance use prevention artwork with the theme, “Fun Things to Do Instead of Drugs”. The winning artwork is reproduced on a school folder distributed to fourth grade classrooms the following school year.

Last year’s contest winners, Sean Arrieta and Kristen Williams of Hoover Elementary School in Bergenfield, were selected out of nearly 3,000 submissions. Their artwork is featured on the 40,000 folders that will be distributed this school year. 

PDFNJ’s school-based programs like the Fourth Grade Folder Contest are an effective way to actively engage today’s youth in choosing and maintaining a drug-free healthy lifestyle. This peer-to-peer substance use prevention artwork is an impactful way to combat peer pressure and for students to creatively share what a healthy lifestyle means to them.

I hope that you will share this information and encourage students to get involved this year. The Contest is accepting submissions until December 7. To learn more about the program and to enter submissions, please click here.