NATCHEZ — A campaign against underage drinking is hitting local shelves soon to help cut off access to alcohol for minors.

Project Sticker Shock hopes to deter adults over 21 from purchasing alcohol for minors and to encourage merchants to ask anyone purchasing alcohol to provide identification, said Adams County Substance Free Coalition Prevention Coordinator Abby Goldblatt, who is coordinating the local efforts.

Coalition members and area students will start visiting local convenience, package and grocery stores Saturday to place stickers warning consumers about the penalties of purchasing alcohol for minors on alcohol packages and store displays.

Goldblatt said the coalition will also work with local merchants to encourage them to card customers purchasing alcohol.

A few high school and college students, who are members of the coalition, are helping with Project Sticker Shock, which Goldblatt said she hopes will send a message to other area youth.

“I think it’s great that their peers see that they’re participating in this and that they’re trying to get more youth involved,” she said.

Asia Green, a student at Copiah-Lincoln Community College’s Natchez campus, is participating in Project Sticker Shock and hopes the stickers will raise public awareness about underage drinking in Adams County.

“With me being just 20 years old, this is the perfect time for me to reach out to not only younger minors but to hopefully have an impact and be an example to young adults just like me around the area,” Green said.

Karen West, resource coordinator for the Mississippi Department of Mental Health’s Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Services, said Project Sticker Shock is a statewide initiative usually done in the spring around prom and spring break and also during football and other sports seasons when underage drinking is common.

“We are trying to cater actually to parents, mentors and caregivers,” she said. “The easy access that kids have to alcohol and drugs is at home.

“We know it takes a village to raise a child, but we need to start at home.”

Project Sticker Shock is sponsored by the Department of Mental Health and Mississippians Advocating Against Underage Drinking.