Summer Youth Program to End with the “Informance” and Field Day
July 9, 2010 |
The City of Clarksville Parks and Recreation Department’s six week Summer Youth Program will come to an end Friday, July 16th. The day-camp type program which is offered each summer to youth ages 6-16 at no cost will bus all of its participants to Heritage Park for a Field Day. Games will be held from 10:00am-2:00pm, with a break for lunch from 11:30am-noon. Games will then resume and the Field Day festivities will conclude with the announcement of the winners.
For more information on the Summer Youth Program, please visit us online at www.cityofclarksville.com or call 931-645-7476.
Following this line of thought, the same question of effectiveness and “changing the world through empty actions” could be applied to pink ribbons for breast cancer awareness, ribbons and bracelets for AIDS awareness, and even the bright yellow Support Our Troops magnetic ribbons attached to millions of cars. Why not simply give cash to the Cancer Society, a local Hospice or donate to the Fisher House on base?
Many Americans need these token affirmations of good intent to support a belief that they can help control a bad situation. It’s a “feel good” issue. Without public awareness, many organizations including MADD would flounder; the red ribbons, the yellow ribbons and the pink bracelets are representative of a burgeoning awareness that there is an issue. The real key is what percentage of the organization’s funds are used for administration (which includes fundraising). Anything more than 20% is not good. I like to see 80% of the budget of such organizations go directly to the cause, not the people running it. MADD, like many other groups spawned in the grassroots sector, relies on thousands of volunteers. When it gets top heavy administratively, the organization is no longer fiscally effective.
On behalf of MADD, and as an avid supporter of the “don’t drink and drive” concept, I have written many stories about the aftermath of drunk driving: I shadowed the mother of a young girl, an equestrienne. Every Saturday for over seven years this devastated mom would walk down the hill to get a ride into the city to a coma unit where her daughter lay. She would brush her hair, talk to her read to her, and never know what tiny shard might pierce her consciousness. Though it took more than seven years, this girl was killed by a drunk driver.
I wrote another story about a young man, 16, who was studying carpentry in vocational school. Hit by a drunk a drunk driver, he lay in his family’s living room in a hospital bed, paralyzed from the neck down — forever.
There were a lot of stories, for drunk driving (or driving under any form of intoxication)is a common and epidemic problem. Red Ribbons are an awareness issue, not a cure. In the business of modern life we forget to be aware; we are asleep at the wheel. Without the red ribbons, we wouldn’t even be talking about MADD.
The issue is not the red ribbons and the awareness campaign but whether this program or any other of its ilk use the lion’s share of its funding for educational programs, for family services, research or whatever it is that is needed to resolve, or at best, work toward a resolution, of the issue.
Thank you, Christine, for making such good points in your comment. I was surprised reading this story that the writer would be so ignorant as to the reason MADD uses red ribbons which they have been doing for years and years at the holiday season. I actually have one on my car year round. I don’t consider it an empty action. However, I do consider the action of the drunk driver that killed my son, my only child, last Christmas to be a selfish and criminal action.
I’m also not sure what the journalist’s point was in this statement:
“The May 2000 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) contains an article discussing a study of drunk driving crashes. I narrowed the information presented here to children, since they are “mothers†against drunk driving.”
He then went on to list some statistics stating the percentage of children killed when their own driver was drunk and the child/children unrestrained in the car. He went on to quote some author who states that child advocates do not like to hear that information because it holds a mirror up to the real perpetrators of the crime. Why would the journalist of this article even quote such a moron? Not that this whole article has any validity. None of that made any sense whatsoever. It doesn’t matter who the drunk driver is. A drunk driver is a drunk driver. It makes me sick that a parent would drive drunk with their child in the car. They have no regard for their own child or anyone else’s. That doesn’t let the rest of the drunk drivers off of the hook. They are making their car a deadly weapon just the same. The statement this journalists makes, “since they are ‘mothers’ against drunk driving”, and then listing those statistics is ridiculous. I believe that people who care about drunk driving, driving while intoxicated, whether it be alcohol or another substance or both, are fighting against it no matter who the driver is. Even when the driver is a politician. A doctor. A lawyer. A journalist. It doesn’t matter who. By the way, he may be surprised by how many fathers are also a part of MOTHERS Against Drunk Driving.
To state at the end of the article that he is not against MADD because they have done a lot to keep drunk drivers off of the street seems to contradict the rest of his article. I may be being too harsh here, I am not familiar with this publication, this may be a high school student that has a lot to learn and I hope he takes the opportunity to learn.
Christine, I thank you for the articles that you have written that bring awareness to the horrible and 100% preventable crime. A crime that is so often looked at in our society as a mistake. My son, Matt, was killed four months before he graduated college — he graduated posthumously. He was to be a marine biologist. He was on his was to a scuba diving trip with friends after just coming home for Christmas break, finishing up an especially tough semester. He was in a coma on life support for one week. He had a fatal brain injury. There is no loss worse in this world than the loss of your child. There is nothing more excruciating than watching your child die.
The fact is that there are people that have read this article that are going to be killed by a drunk driver or will lose a loved one to a drunk driver. That is just the very sad, tragic and preventable truth. I live a nightmare every single day. But I will proudly display my red ribbon and let people know that I am a supporter of MADD and do not tolerate drinking and driving. I am doing more than that, but I don’t look at red ribbons as empty symbols anymore than I would a ribbon that any cause puts out there.
This type of ignorance needs to be changed. Until it is we will continue to have the people out there with the mentality that drunk driving is a mistake. It affects all of us. No matter your nationality, your income, your age — a drunk driver shows no preference to who they kill or injure. They don’t care.
Keep this in mind also. When driver is convicted for DUI, on average that person has driven intoxicated anywhere between 70 to 200 times previously. They just finally got caught. And they will do it again. Because they can.
Connie Beard
Matt’s Mom
My Son, My World, My Hero
Blayne was not defending drunk driving or drunk drivers. He was expressing the perfectly valid opinion that the money and effort being spent by MADD on the ribbon campaign, should instead be directed towards more effective means of actually preventing people from driving while drunk.
I never said that Blayne was defending drunk driving or drunk drivers. He certainly has a right to his opinion however I do argue that it is a valid opinion for every reason I stated above and every reason that Christine also stated. There is no reason to again restate those reasons. There are more than clear. If Blayne is passionate about the crime of drinking and driving then there is much that can be done to be proactive about it. The ribbons brings awareness to this horrible crime that kills. Awareness. Believe me, MADD does a lot more than ribbons. I found out first hand. Hopefully, you won’t have to. But, when you need them they are there. And they are there also fighting legislature for tougher laws. And a fight it is.
Connie Beard
Matt’s Mom
My Son, My World, My Hero
[...] red to show support for our warriors is an empty action. I expressed similar views in my article against the MADD red ribbon campaign. I have found that pointing out people’s empty actions is not popular, and often [...]