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Traffic Safety

Welcome to another issue of The SADDvocate.  The school year is winding down, and we're well into Global Youth Traffic Safety Month.  Is your chapter focusing on traffic safety this month?

Our goal is to ensure that every SADD chapter has the latest news, so we're counting on you to help spread the word about The SADDvocate.  Please encourage all of your SADD chapter members to sign up on sadd.org, or send a list (spreadsheets preferred, with columns for first name, last name, and email address) to Chris Egan, SADD's Director of Field Services, at cegan@sadd.org. 

Sometimes school computer filters prevent students and advisors from seeing The SADDvocate properly, in full color with graphics.  You can view every issue in our online archive.  This issue will be posted to the archive later today.

A good source of regular SADD news is  our Facebook page.  Please "like" our page today, and encourage your friends to do so as well!  Links to all our social networking pages are on the bar at left.

It's Global Youth Traffic Safety Month!  GYTSM is sponsored by NOYS (National Organizations for Youth Safety), a coalition of national youth organizations which includes SADD.  SADD chapters are asked to conduct traffic safety activities this month to recognize GYTSM.  There are many options - from seat belt checks to distracted driving prevention to a focus on educating students about your state's graduated drivers license (GDL) law.  For additional ideas, check the NOYS GYTSM toolkit, which you can download here.

During the GYTSM kickoff on Capitol Hill, NOYS presented SADD with the Youth Choice Award for Nonprofit Organizations. 

Pictured at left with the award are Penny Wells, SADD National President & CEO, along with current SADD National Student of the Year Deanna Boucher and former SADD National Student of the Year (and current Ohio SADD director) Ricky Birt. 


If you're focused on distracted driving during GYTSM, remember that SADD has worked with the Ad Council to promote the Stop the Texts, Stop the Wrecks campaign, which you can find at stoptextsstopwrecks.org.  Teachers, there are now classroom materials tied to academic core standards associated with this campaign which can be freely downloaded.  To see what's available, click here.

SADD has partnered with NIDA (National Institute on Drug Abuse) on the PEERx campaign, which addresses teen prescription drug abuse - a growing public health problem.  On the PEERx site you'll find information and stats, activity ideas, a "Choose Your Path" interactive guide that shows the consequences of the decisions you make, and free downloads.  Teachers, you can find prescription drug curricula and classroom activities through Heads Up, Scholastic's collaboration with NIDA.

The PEERx program was highlighted at a booth in the recent National Rx Drug Abuse Summit in Orlando, and three local SADD students from University High School SADD in Orlando helped staff the booth and present a train-the-trainer workshop!  The SADD students even had the opportunity to meet NIDA Director Dr. Nora Volkow, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin, and Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) Director Gil Kerlikowske (pictured above left to right, Director Kerlikowske, Naya Zapata, chapter president Destiny Ramos, and Julissa Perdomo).  A special shout-out to these students for making such a tremendous commitment!

The Sundance Channel premieres a new docu-series called Push Girls on June 10, which follows the real-life stories of women in wheelchairs in Los Angeles.  Chelsie Hill, paralyzed in an impaired driving crash when she was in high school, is profiled in this month's Seventeen, and will be joining the cast of Push Girls later in the first season.  As part of the show's introduction, SADD has partnered with the Sundance Channel and Seventeen magazine on a prom safety campaign.  Take the prom safety promise today by clicking here!  You can find out more about Chelsie and her powerful story at walkandrollfoundation.org.  We're also excited to announce that she'll be joining us at our national conference next month!

SADD National charges no chapter dues or membership fees.  This means we must always seek new means of financial support.  One simple and painless way to give to SADD is to install the SADD We-Care Reminder.  This simple browser plugin takes only seconds to install and then when you shop online (at thousands of websites including major online retailers like Amazon.com), a portion of your purchase price will be donated to SADD - at NO cost to you, and with NO action required on your part - it's automatic!  This even integrates with Google Search - just search for a product and the leading website that donates to SADD will be "pointed" out by a helpful pointer dog icon!

Won't you take just 20 seconds to install the Reminder right now, and encourage family and friends to do the same?  Just visit sadd.we-care.com/start.  Giving back has never been so simple, easy, and FREE!  Funds raised will help support SADD programming and services to chapters.

Don't miss this life-changing experience!  The registration deadline is approaching for the 2012 SADD National Conference, The Prevention League: Discover Your Power, to be held June 24-27, 2012, at the Torrance Marriott South Bay hotel in Torrance, California (just south of Los Angeles).  The registration deadline is May 21, so don't wait - register today!

Conference highlights include:

• Compelling keynote speakers Johan Khalilian, Bobby Petrocelli, Cara Filler, and Chelsie Hill 
• Dynamic workshops on a variety of topics, from traffic safety to chapter development, underage drinking and drug use
• An offsite trip to Disneyland (included in the conference cost)!
• A great location near California beaches, one of the largest malls in the country, and more!  

Make your plans now to join us for this unforgettable experience!  For detailed information and to register, click here.  Keep your fundraising going strong - click here to use our newest tool, the SADD Gift of Education E-Card!

What's your natural high?  Natural High, who you may be familiar with thanks to their series of Natural High DVDs distributed to schools, wants to know!  The Natural High contest gives you a chance to share your personal natural high in a variety of formats - a video, poster, or essay.  A winner will be named in each of the three categories in both middle school- and high school-age groups, and they'll receive $250.  A grand prize winner will be selected from this group and will receive an additional $200 and a cool waterproof mountable HD Go-Pro camera to document your adventures!  The deadline to enter is May 31, so get to work today!  For more information, click here.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) is holding a contest to find a new social media icon for their distracted driving efforts, located at distraction.gov.  Students up to age 18 are invited to submit an icon, and the winner will be featured on the distraction.gov website and Facebook page!  Entries are due by July 31.  Click here to learn more.

 

Our friends at YSA asked us to remind you that they give away an incredible $1 million in grants to groups like SADD chapters each year for service projects on a variety of topics.  Deadlines for different grants happen throughout the year, and some are coming up soon, so make sure you check out ysa.org/grants!  When you apply for a grant, put "SADD" in the "Partner Code" field, and you'll receive a priority review of your application!

During Global Youth Traffic Safety Month, encourage your peers to put down their cell phones while driving!  These inexpensive silicone thumb rings remind people to think before texting or using a phone while driving.  Embossed with the message NO TXTING - TXTL8R, the thumb rings are an affordable giveaway item to hand out as part of your traffic safety activities. 

To order, visit saddstore.org, call 1-888-608-6988, or email sadd@apisource.com.  Remember to "like" the SADD Store Facebook page to receive all the latest deals and new items in your News Feed!

Each month, a member of the SADD National Student Leadership Council (SLC) writes a column designed to help chapters with activity ideas, meeting suggestions, and more.

Hey everyone - my name is Rachael Pishtek, and I serve on the SLC.  I'm from North Dakota and I'm just finishing my freshman year at Concordia College in Minnesota.

It's Global Youth Traffic Safety Month, and SADD chapters are working busily to address this issue.  Traffic safety is something a lot of teens take for granted, thinking a crash could never happen to us, and I was no different.  But I got a big wake-up call last summer that really scared me.

It was a busy weekend before college started and my friend was driving to meet me when she decided to reach down and pick up her phone right as she approached a major intersection.  As she looked down to grab it, she entered the intersection and was hit by a truck traveling the other way.

Luckily she survived to tell the tale (as did the people in the truck), but it could very easily have turned out differently.  My friends and I learned something critically important that day - a moment of distraction can have major consequences.  We need to focus on just driving, and stay away from distractions like texting or cell phone use.  Don't learn this lesson through a tragedy! 

Please drive safely and spread the word to encourage your friends to do the same!

Remember that the SADD National Field Services department is here to provide help and support to chapters, especially those in states without state coordinators.  Just call 1-877-SADD-INC, ext. 223 or email fieldservices@sadd.org for help!

Thanks for reading this issue of The SADDvocate, and thanks for all the work you do in your SADD chapters!