When Norma Norris started the Butler Reality Tour in 2003, it was supposed to be a three-month summer program showing local people the real-life horrors of heroin and drug abuse.

Tomorrow in Denver, she will accept an international award for the program she has watched gain, in somewhat of a whirlwind fashion, local, state, federal and now worldwide attention.

"It never occurred to me that it would continue beyond [three months]," Ms. Norris said. "When that summer was over, we had a two-month waiting list. Then professionals from other counties came in asking if I could set up a program model."

Now the Reality Tour is in 18 Pennsylvania counties, including Butler and Westmoreland. The tour, with the help of volunteers, takes participants as young as 10 through a depiction of an addict's first use, first arrest, overdose and eventual death.

The volunteers stage the scenes, playing everything from addicts to doctors, grieving parents and funeral home directors.

In some cases, actual police officers stage the arrest of the addict and real jail officers walk participants through the booking process and show them a small jail cell.

A year after Ms. Norris started the Reality Tour, she created a nonprofit agency, CANDLE Inc., which stands for Community Action Network for Drug Free Lifestyle Empowerment, to market and oversee the tour model.

The International Society of Crime Prevention Practitioners, which is hosting its annual symposium this week, is giving Ms. Norris and the Reality Tour program its Community Crime Prevention Program-Project award.

The award is designed to recognize non-police, community-based groups that have enhanced crime prevention initiatives at the local, state or national level.

A committee reviewed the Reality Tour nomination, submitted by Westmoreland County Sheriff's Sgt. Ron Hasnauer, and notified Ms. Norris of the award this month.

"This program works, and that's why when someone steps up and does something innovative, we like to recognize them," said Dave Gabel, the crime prevention society's president elect.

Mr. Gabel said 60 representatives from the United States, Canada, England and Israel are attending this year's symposium.

Sgt. Hasnauer, who has been involved with the Reality Tour in Westmoreland for about 18 months, said he nominated the program because it deserves recognition for the good it does.

"I think [the award] is going to open the door for them to be out of this state and be in other places," he said.

The recognition is important, he said, because it's difficult for those involved with the program to see the long-term benefits of what they're doing.

"There's nothing that can come back to show you what you've accomplished. It's hard to say we've saved 10 or 15 kids, so you have to feel inside you that 'I've touched some kids out there,' " he said. "I just feel like we're helping."

For more information about the Reality Tour, visit www.realitytour.org or call 724-679-6612.