Get Home Safe Campaign
How many students heard the message of your project?
2000
Estimated percentage of your student body?
81-90%
Who has your project aimed to reach?
Freshman class, Sophomore class, Junior class, Senior class, School professionals, Parents
Objective:
The Get Home Safe campaign was created by a team of 10-12th grade students to bring attention to the “high risk areas” in our town. Our team is led by DHS Educators Jess Horan, Tristan DeRosa, and Corrine Baragatto created tabling events to promote pedestrian safety for the non drivers as well as bike/scooter/driving safety. We all have our own route home. To bring light to some of the issues we are having, we teamed up with Chief Joyce and the Dumont Police Department to assist in our efforts. The discussion was focused on common problems and violations of both drivers and non-drivers surrounding our school. He also shared accident statistics within our community and how many of those are teen related accidents. For the past 10 years, The Brain Injury Alliance of New Jersey (BIANJ) has challenged high schools students/staff from across the state to create safe driving campaigns that they promote to the students in their school and their communities. Challenge accepted!
Target Audience:
The Get Home Safe campaign was created by a team of 10-12th grade students to bring attention to the “high risk areas” in our town. There have been too many teen related accidents as well as accidents involving pedestrians walking to and from school.
Audiences Targeted (in order)
1. Local Police and Traffic Safety
2. Our Team
3. Student Body (hallway Traffic)
4. Senior Health Classes
5. Community Outreach
Execution:
I knew my kids would love a sports spin off so I proposed a get home safe campaign. We discussed in a few meetings what that means ” Get Home Safe.” Our group is composed of a lot of student athletes so the requested jerseys to wear to promote pedestrian and probationary driver safety.
Next we reached out to was our local law enforcement in Dumont. We contacted Chief Joyce to visit and share specific risks surrounding our school. He discussed how many teen-related accidents in town, he pointed out at risk areas and crosswalks not being used. We all practiced tracing out how we get home on a dry erase map of Dumont. We practiced pointing out these areas so that we can do this same activity with the rest of the student population drivers or non- drivers.
We held tabling events before and after lunch. Students were asked to trace their route home from DHS. At that moment, our team members pointed out crosswalks and any other key facts the police shared about in our meeting. It is important to talk to them 1 on 1 in order to show them we all have our own route home, there fore we all have to make decisions to GET HOME SAFE. Of course, we gave them a treat for their time!
Then we visited the senior health classes. We used the 4 bases of a baseball diamond to indicate the different safety precautions in order to return home safe.
1st- Plan ahead- how are you getting to and from- plan ahead
ABSOLUTELY NO DRINKING AND DRIVING- plan a ride (have someone on call just in case)
2nd- Create a safety net- make sure at least 1 person knows where you are going and the route in which you are traveling
3rd- Execute safe Driving- give yourself plenty of time and limit distractions
HOME plate- ULTIMATE GOAL IS ALWAYS TO Get Home Safe
Finally, we made 1000 removable decals for students, staff, parents, coaches, and community members can display to show our campaigns reach. We had a bunch of people share through different social media platforms.
Teamwork:
This campaign was a great way to get our student athletes to model appropriate behavior for the rest of our student body. As soon as I proposed the theme our team bega shouting different ideas. I did not expect them to be all in. There had just been a very significant accident involving two of our seniors, and we wanted to help.
We had breakdown groups set up- We met 1-2 per month
1. Media Specialists- students who took photos and made the video on you tube
2. Google classroom admin- students who worked on our google classroom page to promote our campaign, help organize table sign ups, and schedule class visits in health>
3. Messengers- clipboard people with the Dumont map having one on one conversations with students and staff.
4. Google slide creators- Students who organized what they want on each slide.
5. Decal Makers- Get home safe removable decals made with the cricut machine.
Finally we attended spring sport events and handed out the decals to spread the word
Use of resources:
To bring light to some of the issues we are having, we teamed up with Chief Joyce and the Dumont Police Department to assist in our efforts. The discussion was focused on common problems and violations of both drivers and non-drivers surrounding our school. He also shared accident statistics within our community and how many of those are teen related accidents.
We also shared our get home safe decal with local lunch spots.
Use of media:
We created a youtube link that our homerooms can view as well as a google slide presentation. Between our media specialists (students) in our group as well as photographers, we had two great ways to capture our campaign.
We met and had them propose ideas as to who we can share it with. Our school administrators shared with each other and teachers at the secondary schools. We had everyone put their removable decal on water bottles windows, cell phones, and notebooks. Once they put the decal on their desired area, they then must post with appropriate tag.
Thoroughness:
Time and time again we are faced with dangerous situations on the road. Many times, we do not have control over most of the things happening around us. Our goal is to make sure we are award of the dangers and what the precautionary steps are to getting home safe. None of us want to be that kids in the newspaper who killed someone because of their decisions, or be in danger because no one knows where they are. We have an obligation as a student body to educate ourselves in situations that we are put in daily.
The goal is to get home safe…thats it!
Impact:
The impact was measured by the amount of participation. In the beginning of our campaign we were just working on visibility. People were curious what team in our school is meeting in a bunch of baseball jerseys. It is a co-ed group of students who tend to be the role models in their classes. The curiousity itself sparked interest.
Then as we started doing tabling events handing out decals and tracing routes home. That is where we gained traction. Everyone wanted a free decal. They are all over water bottles and laptops in the school.
Younger kids asked if we could go to the recreational games in our jerseys and hand out decals. The impact is that we want to continue this next year. Look deeper into our theme and move this campaign through the entire distract not just our school. Stay tuned!
Sustainability:
This project has become so big our kids want it as an actual extracurricular activity. A club that works all year long to keep our communities safer for pedestrians as well as drivers.
We needed more time to visit the other schools in the district. We were asked to do an assembly each year to promote crosswalk usage. People were so excited for what we stood for and our message. The fact that faculty staff and students are asking to build on this means that the community wants this as a major objective not only in our high school, but in our entire town.
For our seniors, I know they heard us about prom and preventive and precautionary measures of organizing the event and after event. The discussions in class continued into lunch and at the games after school.
Our students, they want more of this type of message and to be part of our GET HOME SAFE team.
Unexpected Lessons Learned:
We need more time allocated to the elementary and middle schools to share campaign I did not realize that the students would have been so engaged.
Many senior prom plans have been discussed in this group. We spoke about how to use the tools we taught as a group in our lives as young adults. The specific questions asked like local police available during an after party or who is your 2 am phone call.
I believe Get Home Safe is engrained in our town philosophy.
Stipend Reporting:
Your school received a stipend to support your Champion School Teen Driving Safety Project. Additionally, any funds that you raised as a result of your project must be reinvested into transportation safety. The purpose of this report is to itemize expenditures for your project that were paid from the stipend
Removable Vinyl for decals – $200
Jerseys – $600
Food for meetings – $200
Total – $1000
PROJECT MEDIA
