Get a Life! maze and wellness event hosted by Darton State College

ALBANY — The “Get A Life!” maze and wellness event, meant to educate young people on the consequences of their life choices, was held at Darton State College on Wednesday.

The event was coordinated through a partnership between Albany State University’s Project S.T.O.P. (Students Taking on Prevention) and Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital’s Network of Trust School Health Program, which aims to increase awareness and education in Dougherty and Terrell counties on topics including tobacco use, alcohol, HIV, Hepatitis C and human papillomavirus.

The maze is an interactive simulation of choices made in real life and the consequences, both positive and negative, resulting from those choices. In addition to the maze, the event provided health screenings and confidential HIV testing by Albany Area Primary Health Care, as well as displays from organizations and a healthy snack taste-testing.

It also served as a collaborative effort to make sure young people are educated about the community resources available to them.

“We work side by side with our community partners,” said Angie Barber, director of the Network of Trust School Health Program.”We connect community partners together to try to educate.

“(The maze) is truly a path of life choices and the consequences of (bad choices).”

Not joining a gang and using protection during sexual activity, or not engaging in such activity at all, are considered components of a healthy lifestyle — and that is a message youngsters appear to be responding to.

“All the stations they go through are something they can go through in life. It’s reality, is what it is,” said Amanda Paul, coordinator with the Network of Trust.

The event brought together representatives and volunteers from 25 community organizations, plus more than 300 Darton students, faculty and staff. The Taking Time for Teens: Teen Pregnancy Prevention Coalition and We are One ASU helped to sponsor the event, which was funded by a grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

George Thomas, professor of criminal justice and sociology at Albany State, was instrumental in bringing in the grant that funded the maze — which was catered to the 18-24 age group.

Prevention of bad choices, and helping youths to make good decisions, was the key message of the event, Thomas said.

“This is to teach them to be risk-free and take responsibility,” he said. “(The maze has been) very successful.”

The grant period, currently in its first year, will last two more years. The event held on Wednesday was the first one conducted at Darton, but it has been done on the ASU campus before.

“It is a lot of hard work, but is is something that is needed. This is an age group that is at high risk,” Thomas said.

The ASU professor said more events similar to the maze were expected in the future.

The first maze was conducted in 2008, and since that time, new community partners have been invited to participate in order to grow the outreach of the event, officials with Network of Trust said.