Keep Friendship Alive
Please support our cause to help youth create a sustainable grassroots movement to change the culture of alcohol and drug abuse in America!
This year, the 11th Annual Joe Upshaw Golf Classic will benefit Keep Friendship Alive. Erica Upshaw has reached nearly 100,000 students across the country with her keynote, Keep Friendship Alive. Erica’s presentation was inspired by the loss of her best friend and big brother, Joey Upshaw, who died in 2000 from an accidental alcohol and drug overdose while they were both attending Ohio State.
Keep Friendship Alive has achieved many successes by positively influencing high school and college students, but now it is time for the next step. Keep Friendship Alive is expanding to reach kids at a younger age with an unconventional, modern approach that turns peer pressure on its head.
Our mission is to help youth create a sustainable grassroots movement to change the culture of alcohol and drug abuse in America. We will reach young people before they have given in to a social culture that accepts and encourages risky behavior, and we will inspire them to pursue their passions and steer clear of substance abuse. We will dramatically change attitudes and behaviors towards substance abuse and demonstrate a measurable reduction in teenage substance-related deaths.
Our flagship program is an online video series that will kick-start the movement with 6th graders nationwide. College mentors, recruited through the Keep Friendship Alive network, will help fuel the movement. We will conduct cutting edge research and marketing to ensure that we are making the largest possible impact and we will continually measure our success.
Keep Friendship Alive is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization