By Debra Messick

CAMBRIDGE - It isn't every day community kids get to walk through a giant inflatable brain at a Cambridge neighborhood park.

But on Saturday, June 29, that was just one of the surprises youngsters and families found at Calvin Mowbray Park, 700 Weaver Street.

The afternoon of free activities, featuring giveaway goodies, games, and food presented by the Dorchester County Health Department, wasn't all fun and games.

Let’s Be Blunt Summer Kickoff, a Cannabis Awareness Event, was designed as a fun way for youngsters and young adults to find out the facts about how cannabis use can affect their minds and bodies.

While adult recreational use has been legal in Maryland for a year, it’s important to know that underage consumption of cannabis can be costly to the developing mind and body, according to the DCHP pamphlet promoting the event, organized by alcohol and other drug abuse prevention specialist Kirsten Hurley.

The Let's Be Blunt Cannabis Awareness Event was made possible due to funding from Maryland Department of Health on cannabis awareness and education.

Dorchester County Health Department said while this is the first funding of its kind, they expect to see more opportunities in the future.

The event was intended to be an informative and engaging experience for youth to learn how marijuana and concurrent use of alcohol or other drugs can be detrimental to mental and physical health.

It was also an opportunity to collect valuable input from participants on their perceptions of cannabis use and information readily available in the community.

Dorchester County Health Department aims to use the information to identify any gaps within the community to offer services to fill.

After receiving the grant to fund the event, Hurley began exploring online for creative ways to engage with youngsters about cannabis.

“I discovered this Texas company making giant medical inflatables, including hearts, lungs, brains, and other vital organs, for educational purposes.”

At the blow-up brain’s entrance, youngsters who weren't too sure what they were getting into were greeted by reassuring Community Health Worker trainee Mercy Pinder, who is CNA certified and has lived and raised four children and grandchildren in the neighborhood.

Pinder, who is required to complete 40 hours of health-related volunteer work in the community, saw the flyer for the cannabis awareness event and called Hurley to help out.

Former area resident Ashley Stafford was also eager to participate in the event after learning about it from lifelong childhood friend and DCHD Community Health Worker Zsa’Keyia Giles. Giles’ sister Shakezia Jones, who works with Special Education youngsters in Dorchester County Public Schools, had also offered to come help.

Asked why she volunteered at the weekend event when she already works full time helping youngsters, Jones, who used to live in Cambridge, knew the challenges the kids face, and how much positive support they can use to pull themselves up out of there.

Stafford, daughter of dedicated late area educator Dr. Theresa Stafford, is a Washington, DC Health Department staffer who has worked in a dispensary and is a Cannabis Wellness Consultant. She recently earned an M.S. in Medical Cannabis, the first graduate program of its kind in the U.S., she said.

While supportive of the positive therapeutic benefits she feels Cannabis can provide, Stafford is also strongly in favor of educating people about its potential dangers, too.

She brought the brochure she created titled "Cannabis Use Disorder - Empowered Choices Equal a Healthier You: Exploring Cannabis Use Concerns."

Several additional area organization representatives responded to Hurley’s invitation to set up tables at the event. Among them, Lynne Bolden, Family Resource Specialist of Healthy Families Dorchester, which provides outreach to pregnant women and moms of newborns up to three months old; Tabitha Self of Dri-Dock Recovery and Wellness Center; Grace Street Recovery, and Children's Mental Health Matters.org. DCHD's Youth Action Council  took part in the event, as well.

Alex and Lisa Green, founders of Harriet Tubman Tours and  the nonprofit Harriet Tubman Freedom Center, and grandsons  Darnell Cephas and Dom'Eir Evans-Cephas    provided  Creative Creations Bar-B-Q  and  lemonade. Creative Creations services and refreshments were contracted and paid for by the Health Department.

Lynnea Brice, Resident Services Coordinator for Calvin Mowbray Park, was glad to host the event because it met their criteria of being offered free to the community.

For more information about holding events at Calvin Mowbray Park , call 443-754-5726.

For more information about Cannabis awareness from DCHD, call Kirsten Hurley at 410-901-8132.