In May of 2003, we sponsored an art and story contest for Wheel Club members. These are the winning stories.

The Sun, The Moon and the Boy

This story is featured as our story of the season for Summer.  Click here to read Jesus's story.

Using drugs is definitely bad.  In fact, it can effect your life and end up dieing just like my uncle did.  He was born in 1970 and died in 1990.  His life was destroyed by using drugs, sharing needles and being in a gang.

To start with, my uncle was born in 1970.  My grampa was there when he was born.  He grew up in Mexico and he was in the Spanish culture.  Grandma and Grandpa loved him so much.  When he was born grandfather said he's going to be the best son ever.

Second, in high school teenagers offered him drugs.  My uncle was peer pressured to smoke marijuana.  they didn't teach about S.O.D.A.S. which means stop, options, decide, act and self praise.  He took it and got addicted to it.  Soon he used all kinds of drugs.

Third he dropped out of high school at age 16.  They beat him up so he could join a gang.  Two months passed and my uncle became a drug dealer.  That's the only way he got money.  A year later he shared needles suddenly he got the H.I.V.  My uncle didn't find out until he felt weak all the time.

Also, his role model was Jorje Campos.  He was a great soccer player.  Jorje Campos earned $1-5 million a year.  My uncle wanted to be a great soccer player too but drugs destroyed his dream.  There was no way he could be a soccer player if he didn't even graduate from high school.

To bad he died in the year 1990.  I didn't even exist.  My uncle got killed at a very young age.  Some people say another gang shot him.  By the way my grandpa found out everything when my uncle was 19 years old.  He left the house and I don't know where he was living for one year.

What a sad story my mom told me.  I wish my uncle were alive today.  Did I ever tell you his name, well if I didn't everybody called him Teyo, that's a Spanish nickname.  I'll tell you this, NEVER use or do DRUGS because they affect your LIFE.  That's the story, got to go "bye".

Today I'll be writing a story about some of the things that I've learned in this program.  This story is about a kid named Efrain.

Efrain had too many problems; his dad was the biggest problem because he was a drug addict.  In spite of that, Efrain loved him and appreciated him as a friend.  Efrain's mom was very grumpy and would get mad a Efrain for any reason.  Efrain was having problems at school too, his friends would despise him and make fun of him because his dad was a drug addict and his mom a lady with no future.  Efrain knew that his friends used drugs so he thought he had an unfortunate life so he was allowed to do drugs too.  So he felt the temptation to smoke too.  His parents never took care of him so he thought they would not ever find out about it.  On Monday morning was when Efrain received the worst news of his life that his dad had died of an overdose.  Efrain did not want to end up dead like his dad and like his friends with no future.  Efrain reacted and promised that he would never do drugs in his life.

David is a student at George Willard Elementary School.  He is a 7th grader.  David and his class were learning about drugs, the drugs they learned about were Marijuana, Cocaine, Heroin and LSD.  He was really surprised of all the chemicals they had and how deadly they were.  David had a cousin.  He is in the 8th grad.  He has been smoking marijuana with is friends.  His name is Jose.

Jose was with his friends in an alley on a Saturday.  They were smoking pot.  Jose called David and David went over.  Jose asked David if he wanted to smoke some pot, Jose said if he did, people would think he is cool.  David remembered what he learned in class. He told Jose that he didn't want to smoke any pot because it harms your body and it might even kill you.  David said to Jose here's a rhyme you might want to keep in mind.  Smoke pot to be cool if you do you might as well be a fool.  Months passed and David decided to help Jose quit.  With hard work, David succeeded.  Jose quite and now he is helping his friends to quit.  So both of them were really happy at the end.

Long time ago when I was not too strong this happened to me:

I saw a bike in a store.  I had dreams of it, I wanted it but it was too expensive. The only way that I could buy it was to work with my uncle for a long time and save money.  My best friend decided to go with me; he also wanted to make money so both of us left with my uncle.

My uncle was very nice but working was very difficult.  We had to clean a big field.  we had to throw the garbage really far from where we were.  It was really hard because my friend and I were not too strong for that kind of job.  Slowly I go used to cleaning until I was ready and used to the hard work, so did my friend.  The boring part was that we could not see our parents because they were far.  I almost had enough money to buy two or three bikes.  It was almost time to clean another field bigger that the others.  It took us a month to finish it.  when we finally finished, my uncle paid us $1,500 total to both of us for all the hard work.  I had saved up about $3,200.  So we decided to go back home.  When I got home, I told everything to my mom.  I bought myself the bike and all the other things that I always wished to have.