Mark Peyton, commander for the East Central Illinois Task Force, said 352 children have been removed from homes contaminated with methamphetamines statewide from May 2005 to February 2007.

The presence of meth is especially harmful to young children because there is a residue created from meth production that acts like a poison to small children, said Ke’An Rogers, Coles County Meth Awareness Coalition board member.

When children crawl on the floor and pick up toys off the ground and put them in their mouths, the residue enters their systems. Even the air they breathe is toxic, Rogers said.

“No one can be healthy in this type of situation,” she said said.

Children can take nothing with them when the police or Department of Children and Family Services take them away from their harmful environment, Rogers said.

For this reason, the Coles County Meth Awareness Coalition is assembling care packs for children from homes where substances, especially methamphetamines, have been abused.

From 4 to 6 p.m. today at the Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Education Center, the coalition will be organizing packages for children ranging from infants to high schoolers. They welcome volunteers in package assembly.

Packages include clothes, toiletries, toys, blankets and other items to help them through their transition.

Some items were donated, while others were purchased through a grant.

The coalition will be able to put together care packs for 20 different children.

After assembly, the care packs will be taken to the police and DCFS, who will give the packages to children immediately after they are removed from their homes.

“The care packs are something to take with them so they have some sort of sense of belonging,” Rogers said.

Rogers, publicity, promotion, outreach and grant manager for WEIU, became involved with the coalition after WEIU had a meth awareness outreach program. She has been part of the coalition for the past three years.

Three years ago, Coles County was one of the counties in Illinois with the most cases of meth abuse, Rogers said.

Peyton said there have been 218 meth labs dismantled in the last three years in Coles, Douglas and Moultrie counties combined.

But the labs are now on the decline, and Rogers said she likes to think both WEIU and the coalition have helped.

Lt. Hank Pauls, of the Charleston Police Department, has worked with these children.

Pauls, president of the coalition, said when people become addicted to methamphetamine, their only thoughts are about meth. The children are usually third on the addicted parents’ list of priorities, he said.

He said these people lose all concept of what is vital – and their children are left behind.

Pauls said he has seen confiscated videos taken by meth addicts. They videotape their own children crawling around “usually in squalor” while the parents laugh and joke at the child’s expense.

“It’s very tragic,” he said.

Pauls said even the clothing off the children’s backs has to be removed because of meth contamination.

Pauls said in his experience, the children are usually less than the age of 5.

He said these children are usually attached to a blanket or toy – then the item is “ripped away.”

“The only thing you had to cling to is gone,” Pauls said.

The care packages will include comfort items for the children to help with that transition, he said.

“These care packs are going to provide some instant relief to some degree,” Pauls said.

This is the first time the coalition has assembled care packs, but Rogers is hoping to make it an ongoing project.

“The more people actively engage themselves in the coalition and in our project, the more people we can benefit and the better we can benefit our community,” she said.