ELKINS — On Monday, the Elkins Rotary Club learned more about drug abuse in the community.

Randolph County Family Resource Director Rebecca Vance, a representative of the Randolph County Substance Abuse Coalition, explained more about the coalition during a presentation to Rotarians.

“We are really excited to have a huge group of concerned citizens that are working together to better the community,” she said.

The coalition is made up of concerned community members, business leaders, elected officials, agencies and nonprofits. The coalition meets once a month to work and share ideas to see if their objectives and goals are showing progress. They also host gatherings at least two or three other times to work in smaller committees on specific objectives.

Valuing the input and ideas of the community, the coalition shares what they have been working on with quarterly and gather feedback and ideas.

This gives the community the opportunity to share with the coalition what they would like to see done and what they would like to see improved.

Data was collected to prove how serious of an issue overdoses are in the community. Over a six-month time period, there were three overdoses in Beverly, 20 in Elkins and one in Kerens.

The main drugs that were used in overdose were aspirin, benzodiazepine, methadone, heroin, opioids and tetrahydrocannabinol.

Vance said the statistics are closely monitored to see if the numbers are lowering or rising.

She explained, the coalition is also tracking is the number of drug arrests and citations given. The group hopes to use the data collected to create a baseline to help monitor the changes year to year.

Those with any questions or ideas, call Rebecca Vance at 304-636-4454 or Melissa Kisner, the president of the coalition, at 304-637-3477.