I’m glad I had the opportunity to attend tonight’s meeting and get to know some pretty cool and caring individuals. Although there were only 6 other people in the room, I felt like it was a productive time.

Before the others arrived, I had the chance to talk for a while with Ms. Akosua Albritton, the chairperson of the Youth & Family Services Committee. She spoke to me about the general functions and ways in which most committees operate. Out of the 59 community boards in NYC, 18 of them originate from Brooklyn. She says that this particular committee has been around for years and that she has been a member since 1999. She says she has seen three other chairmen ever since she attends the meetings and that she has never heard the issue of gentrification being discussed by this particular committee—I did ask if she had heard anything about it, because it’s definitely a prevalent issue currently affecting many families in the area. So this response was somewhat unexpected.

The meeting got started around 6:45pm. She had prepared an agenda with four main ideas to discuss and Ms. Albritton made it very clear from the beginning that any opinion, suggestion, or comment was welcome even from non-members.

Synthetic Cannabinoids and Cathinones, also known as “K2” and “Bath salts”, was one of the main topics brought to the committee’s attention. I was mind-blown as I kept hearing more about this new product, which seems to be pretty common in the streets nowadays. One of the members, Mr. Lee, was distraught by the fact that if it wasn’t the high school teen buying such “spice(s)”, then it was the junior high school one buying them for the elementary kids, and if they still couldn’t have access to it, the older folks were now making a business out of it, to not only consume it themselves, but also purchasing the-now-illegal substance—according to Mr. Albritton, K2’s use only became prohibited as of December of 2014—to then resell it to the younger populations. This issue is of such concern, that she, with the help of another committee member, put together a pamphlet to inform the public about the facts of this commonly used drug. The chairperson asked us for suggestions as to where these pamphlets should be placed for an effective distribution to the community.

Another interesting topic that was discussed: the D.R.E.A.M.S. Youthbuild & Young Adult Training Program. Ms. Albritton shared with us that she had been asked to go to their facilities and educate that particular youth group about the different committees that exist within their neighborhoods and how they can get involved once they complete their trainings. She was also pretty excited because a few of them showed an incredible amount of interest in regards to creating/planning an event with her to educate parents and the youth about the dangers of K2 use. Because knowing about the effects of these things can’t hurt…