One split-second decision can cost a life. It can cost a lifetime of grief for friends and family. It can cost a bright future. The cost of bad decisions is just too high. So, we’re doing something about it through education, awareness, and prevention.
JFJC’s mission is to help children and young adults make safer decisions and avoid preventable tragedies. We focus on providing support and awareness for comprehensive prevention, early intervention, and recovery programming for children, adolescents, and parents about good decision-making and the effects of engaging in high-risk behaviors. While the past cannot be changed, the future is in our collective control. We are committed to creating something positive from one family’s heartache by building a movement. We believe that early and consistent education about decision-making and consequences can prevent high-risk behaviors so that fewer families ever have to experience a tragic phone call.
John Fontaine, Jr., was a magnetic, funny, talented, personable, kind teenager. He was a friend, a student, a brother, and the son of Jack and Nancy Fontaine.
In 2000, Jack and Nancy found themselves grappling with an unimaginable tragedy. After heading to a friend’s house for the night—where unknown to Jack and Nancy, alcohol was being served—John made a fateful decision that cost him his life. That night, John left the party to get food with a friend who had been drinking. Minutes later, the car hit a tree, and John was killed instantly. He was just 16.
John’s life was short but impactful. More than 1,200 people attended his funeral, filling the entire church and all overflow areas—a true testament to his spirit. Seeing this outpouring of support, and wanting to honor John’s memory, the family used their grief and pain to fuel a positive cause and take steps to prevent the tragedy of young lives cut short.
John’s legacy continues through JFJC, the charity built in his name, and the belief that many lives can and will be saved by early intervention, education and open conversations about high-risk behaviors.
Through awareness, education, and conversation, lives can be saved, and tragedies averted. JFJC’s work was first grounded in this mission with the formation of the Fontaine Center at the University of Georgia to shift cultural beliefs and attitudes about alcohol and underage drinking. Research has shown that the Center’s prevention and early intervention initiatives have been successful in helping students adopt healthy behaviors, and the program has been held up as a model throughout the Southeastern Conference (SEC) and beyond.
As Jack and Nancy learned more about the neuroscience behind decision-making in children and young adults, it became clear that even more tragedies can be prevented by starting education as early as elementary school. Our signature program, BrainAbouts®, is an evidence-based online program that helps students, parents, educators, and counselors understand and openly discuss high-risk behaviors through consistent and developmentally appropriate education. BrainAbouts aims to reach children and adolescents before they ever consider taking their first sip of alcohol or dip their toes into other risky behaviors.
We invite you to join us in this movement. With you alongside us, we know that our work has infinite potential to change the lives of millions of young people and their families.
Nancy and I made a promise to John: that we would get involved, and we would reduce tragic phone calls to parents.
– Jack Fontaine