Drug Court members help clean up city

Members of the Washita-Custer County Treatment Court Program, the program compliance officer Daniel Evans, and the program coordinator Sarah Mears-Ivy met Feb. 24 to do a "spring clean-up" in Cordell.

Twenty-eight participants cleaned up Cordell's Lee Park and Crider Road from Highway 183 to the intersection at Highway 152.

Participants cleaning Cordell Park picked up 13 bags of litter and collectively disposed of nearly 1,000 cigarette butts found in the park. Participants cleaning Crider road picked up 18 bags of litter. The litter collected filled three residential-sized polycarts.

The labor provided for this clean-up project would be worth an estimated $280 if each participant volunteer was paid a standard wage of $10 per hour.

The Washita-Custer County Treatment Court Program encourages program participants to become active in and connected to their communities here in Western Oklahoma by providing much needed services to their communities.

“The Washita-Custer County Treatment Court Program appreciates the support we receive from our communities.

By doing this volunteer work, the participants are giving back to the communities that have supported them,” Judge Christopher S. Kelly said.

The Washita-Custer County Treatment Court Program is a prison diversion program designed to habilitate nonviolent, felony-level offenders with substance use disorders. Participants go to work, go to treatment, perform volunteer work, attend self-help meetings, follow a strict performance contract, are highly supervised, and take care of their families rather than being sent to prison.

Treatment courts save taxpayer dollars, Mears-Ivy said. It costs about $19,000 a year for one person to be incarcerated while it only costs about $5,000 a year for each person to participate in the treatment court program – and much of that is paid for by the participant.