Students earn grant to fight drunken driving

Herald-Tribune

El Dorado Springs, Mo. -- El Dorado Springs High School DECA students have something to say, and they hope their peers are listening.

DECA advisor Vicki Hillsman said the community has lost five El Dorado Springs students to traffic accidents in the past four years, and those who remain were determined to do something.

Through an effort sponsored by State Farm Insurance and coordinated by the National Youth Leadership Council, the teens are reaching out to other teens in the hope of quashing the impact vehicle crashes on the lives of their peers. El Dorado Springs will receive a $2,000 grant to develop a safe driving campaign for their high school.

"We were going to do something anyway. With the grant we will be able to make it nicer," and to present a more comprehensive program throughout the high school community.

The group met on Thursday, to iron out many of the details, but the general plan has been in place for several months.

Hillsman said that there are about 75 DECA students -- a marketing and management group -- each year, and these students will gain event planning and concept marketing experience through the program, dubbed "Everyday Choices, Forever Outcomes."

Will be trying to get all teachers to help plan something in the classroom. For example, art students could make posters. We (DECA) will give them the information to make them from. We'll have an insurance agent speak to class, a physics class could exam car crashes … and on Sept. 27, we will have an assembly. A state trooper will come with a simulator. That is our big day," but activities will span much more than a day.

The El Dorado Springs DECA project will encompass other dangerous driving behaviors as well, such as using cell phones while driving and other distracted driving habits, which, Hillsman said, have been the primary culprits in the deaths of the local teens. "Only one of the crashes involved drinking. And the girl who was killed wasn't the driver who had been drinking," she said.

Students will also research Missouri law try to determine how much driving time students learning to drive have under their seat belts before they receive their licenses.

Hillsman said the primary targets of the marketing effort will be the freshman and sophomore students, who are the ones learning to drive now, and their parents.

"It's a big program, and we're very grateful for the grant," Hillsman said.

Crashes are the number one killer of American teenagers, according to State Farm's statistics, and the Project Ignition peer programs, first presented in 2004, seem to be working, according to Lief Roll of State Farm Insurance.

In local, peer-generated programs, the people delivering the message "are the ones whose friends and families have lost someone, so having them build their own program makes sense. It's for them, by them. You year them and see them communicate. You see the others listening. You seen them standing outside the schools later, checking to make sure seat belts are on," for example -- evidence Roll has seen first-hand through his own involvement with the project.

Further evidence that the program is having an impact can be found in the statistics, Roll said, indicating that in Shallowater, Texas, "the high school had lost nine students in three and a half months, and they knew they had to do something. Deaths in these communities and high school dropped off.

Through a variety of tactics, such as awareness campaigns and improved road signs, the students helped spawn a 67-day absence of vehicle accidents involving teens.

"Project Ignition embodies the true meaning of service-learning and how teens can have a direct impact not only on the lives of their peers, but also on the community," said Dr. James Kielsmeier, president of NYLC. "Teen driving behavior and habits are a major factor in teen driving accidents. Project Ignition uses service-learning as a tool for young people to educate themselves and their neighbors on the risks they face every time they get behind the wheel."

Many of the projects go beyond the high school community. Most of the participants take their message to middle school students and to other groups in the community.

The variety of presentations created by the students is astonishing to Roll. "They're always coming up with original ways to get the point across." Activities range from breathalyzer demonstrations, to re-enactments of crashes to personal accounts and more.

Roll said student efforts through Project Ignition have led to stronger partnerships between the people and local and state governments as well

Ten finalists will be chosen in the spring of 2008 to attend The National Service-Learning Conference in Minneapolis, Minn., where the "Best of the Best" safe driving campaign is chosen. The school chosen as the "Best of the Best" is awarded a $10,000 grant to continue its Project Ignition campaign.