Grieving father offers teens money not to drink

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Grieving father offers teens money not to drink

Five years ago, Leo McCarthy lost his 14-year-old daughter, Mariah, when a drunken driver hit her and two of her friends as they walked down a sidewalk near her home.

But he refused to let her tragic death become just another statistic.

Knowing that the driver was 20 years old -- not even old enough to drink legally -- McCarthy made an unusual promise to the teenagers attending Mariah's memorial service in Butte, Montana.

"If you stick with me for four years," he said during her eulogy, "don't use alcohol, don't use illicit drugs but give back to your community, work with your parents and talk to your parents, I'll be there with a bunch of other people to give you money."

McCarthy has lived up to his end of the bargain. Along with Jimm Kilmer and Chad Okrusch, the fathers of Mariah's two friends who survived the accident, McCarthy has given $1,000 scholarships to more than 140 high-school graduates who have taken Mariah's Challenge.

"I wanted to give them encouragement and to tell them that ... you can be better and always be greater in the situation," said McCarthy, whose nonprofit raises the money through private donations.

Mariah's Challenge is simple. Teens can go online and sign a pledge to not drink until they are 21 and not get into a car with someone who has been drinking. Toward the end of their senior year, if they have not been convicted of underage possession of alcohol, they are eligible to submit a scholarship application, which includes a 300-word essay explaining how Mariah's Challenge has affected their life.

Recipients are selected by McCarthy, Kilmer and Okrusch based on the essay and an interview.

"Mariah's Challenge stands for integrity, character and honesty and living a life of simple self-respect," said McCarthy, 52.

The message is something that is sorely needed in Butte, he said, one of a few places in the country where people can drink in public.

"Butte has an apathetic attitude in some ways to underage drinking," McCarthy said. "And it has a somewhat acceptance of drinking and driving. ... It's generational."

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