On Oct. 18, Edmond Memorial High School’s Student Council announced this year’s Swine Week recipient Peaceful Family, meaning it is finally time to begin fundraising and preparing for the week every student awaits.

Peaceful Family is an organization dedicated to helping children cope with a loved one’s addiction. The nonprofit program uses mental and physical activities to help deconstruct the guilt that children feel because of their family member’s addiction.

“It was a really hard decision this year, but with Peaceful Family, we had a really good connection between their organization and how we will be able to get involved with them,” Swine Week Chair Anna Kate Lewis said.

In 2014, Peaceful Family co-founder Mike Barcum became co-guardian of his grandchildren and began searching for resources to help them cope with their parent’s substance abuse. After finding a gap in these resources he helped found Peaceful Family nearly 10 years ago. Peaceful Family has the incredible opportunity to spend their first decade celebration as the Swine Week recipient. 

“We help them identify their feelings, help them find healthy ways to get those feelings out, develop communication skills and hope to identify their safe people,” Peaceful Family President and Executive Director Lisa Reed said. “It statistically reduces the likelihood that they will follow in the footsteps of their family members.”

To combat these thoughts of guilt by the child, Peaceful Family offers different options based on the age of the child. For tweens and teens, the programs entail talking out their problems and doing activities to help them understand that the family member’s addiction is not their fault. Peaceful Family is also working to deconstruct the stigma surrounding the discussion of addiction in families.

“I truly fell in love with Peaceful Family as soon as they started their presentation with us,” Co-STUCO adviser Grant Hill said. “They had a really impactful demonstration of the baggage that some kids walk around with, and put it into perspective for our STUCO kids who may not comprehend the struggles that some students walk around with every day.”

One of their most notable activities is their bag of rocks. They ask the kids in the program to hold a 40-pound bag of rocks and tell them to imagine how it would feel to carry the bag all the time. They then make the connection of the bag of rocks to the family member’s addiction.

“It’s an analogy for the problems that their grown-ups are carrying and why they use substances to get a break from that 40-pound backpack,” Reed said. “That is where the burden starts to lift for the kids; it’s just remarkable.”

After using their bag of rocks analogy in their presentation to EMHS’s student council, Peaceful Family sealed the deal. Student council surprised the Peaceful Family staff a few days later at their office with the announcement that they had been chosen as the 2024 Swine Week recipient, and the staff could not be more excited. 

“We get to completely change the trajectory of an organization and to me, that is a pretty exciting thought,” Hill said. “There are so many students who have no idea why everyone is so excited for one week in the year, but they leave being a completely changed person for the better.”

As one of the only organizations of its kind in Oklahoma, Peaceful Family is beyond passionate about their work and everything they do for the community. They were surprised and thrilled to reach so many new people through Swine Week.

“I’m really excited about our recipient; they’re really passionate about what they do, which will definitely make Swine Week a really big deal,” Lewis said. “I’m just so excited to see what our school does to help them.”

Until Swine Week rolls around in spring 2024, students can help raise money through the many fundraising events that EMHS’s STUCO holds. Although most of those events do not begin until next semester, Peaceful Family is more excited than ever, and can’t wait for the festivities to begin.

“The financial resources will be incredibly meaningful for this organization,” Reed said. “But the other piece of the exponential growth in the knowledge that we even exist. All of the Memorial students, and all of the Central, Cimarron and Oakdale students will know, and all of their families know. Everyone with a connection to Edmond Memorial will know we exist.”

Now that a recipient has been chosen for this year’s Swine Week, students are ready to make an impact on this organization and all of the children it serves. Students and staff are so excited to begin fundraising #forthekids.

Contact Macey Thaxton at [email protected]