I'm heading down to Knoxville, Tennessee Friday for the annual meeting of ADTSEA, the American Driver Training & Safety Education Association.
I'm proud to say I'm on the Executive Board of the group, and I'll also be representing client The National Road Safety Foundation when I present the Teacher Excellence Award to three outstanding driver education teachers next week.
More to come....
The new issue of Road Buzz, the newsletter of The National Road Safety Foundation, is out.
It highlights the various projects and initiatives we've been working on.
We finished the virtual media tour to support the "Safest Summer Ever" social media project we're doing with the young people at SADD. We hit 24 markets with zoom interviews that garnered some 250 minutes of TV time, talking about safe teen driving during the dangerous summer months.
We also wrapped up some youth contests we do every year with auto shows in L.A., D.C. and Chicago. And we announced the winner of our annual Drive2Life PSA Contest. This year's winner is Laura Gonzales, a high school student from Lithia, FL:. Her winning PSA idea is a throwback to the era of silent movies, in black and white and using titles on the screen to show the dialogue. In it, two girls leave a party, the driver obviously too drunk to drive. Her friend grabs the keys and safely drives them home as she talks about the risks of driving drunk. Check out her PSA, which will be airing soon on more than 170 TV stations nationwide.
The newsletter will be up soon on the NRSF site, at https://www.nrsf.org/newsletters
New York City thanked those who helped us through the pandemic in a uniquely New York way. Yesterday, the city hosted a ticker-tape parade up the "valley of heroes" -- the lower part of Broadway.
In the parade were first responders, healthcare workers, delivery people, bodega and supermarket workers and others who put their own lives on the line to help get us through the pandemic when it was at its worst.
But it seems like a very important group of heroes was overlooked. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of selfless volunteers came to help New York from throughout the nation. Nurses, doctors, and many others who put their lives on hold and at great risk to come to New York to pitch in.
We can't overlook them. Instead, we should thank them for helping and caring.
Photo: NBC 4 NY
The virtual media tour we did for The National Road Safety Foundation, talking about teen summer driving, wrapped up this week as the last interview aired this morning on "Good Day Atlanta" on FOX 5 WAGA-TV. Here's a link...
We did a total of 25 interviews on TV stations in 23 markets, getting about 85 minutes of air time to talk about safe summer driving for teens, with advice on what parents can do to keep their kids safe behind the wheel. Interviews were done by my colleague at The NRSF, Michelle Anderson (that's her on the right in the screen-grab), as well as me and Rick Birt, CEO of SADD. We also had a few of the teen student leaders from SADD do some of the interviews.
The message is universal, for teens and adults alike. Be smart when you're behind the wheel. Drive safely and always buckle up.
Have a good July 4th weekend.
Torrey Maldonado, a friend who is a teacher and Christopher Award-winning children's book author, shared some thoughts on the meaning of Juneteenth, along with some other writers he knows.
Here's what he had to say...
"Heading into Juneteenth, I had dinner with a friend. Lots of laughs, no. Business. At some point, us joking turned into him saying, “I gave my staff off for Juneteenth. But I want to write a letter to them about why. What would you say? What does Juneteenth mean to you?” I felt two things. First, he’s the Executive Director of a human rights organization so it makes sense that his employees get a day off for a holiday that recognizes our humanity. Second, the history teacher in me got fired up to explain Juneteenth.
I’ve taught history for over twenty years and wanted to say, “Juneteenth is the promise of freedom for enslaved Black people that
wasn’t kept until two years after the Emancipation Proclamation” then something inside steered me to do something else—compare notes. Because I hoped to learn if what we experienced today connected us to Juneteenth. So, I gave his question back to him, “What does Juneteenth mean to you?” He shared and each time he spoke I nodded, “Same” because we both experienced what he said. “Didn’t celebrate it. Didn’t know about it. People around us didn’t either. And schools didn’t teach Juneteenth.” But even though we both were born and raised in New York City housing projects, which are very different from the Texas birthplace of Juneteenth, our chat revealed deeper, everlasting connections to Juneteenth.
For starters, our ancestors survived slavery and promises were made to our people that were not kept and still keep us from being fully free. “Liberty and justice for all’ was never fully applied to our families. Our pre-Juneteenth dinner strengthened a feeling in me that Juneteenth is history yet it’s also right now."
Click here to see the entire post, with thoughts from several other writers.
More TV interviews around the nation, to tell people about the heightened risk of summer driving, especially for teens.
Here's a spot we did for The National Road Safety Foundation with the CBS station in Buffalo yesterday.
The period between Memorial Day and Labor Day is traditionally the most dangerous time for teen drivers, with a 21 percent spike in teen traffic fatalities.
Traffic safety officials often refer to it as “the 100 deadliest days.”
On behalf of client The National Road Safety Foundation, I'm working again this year with the leaders and student leaders of SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) to help make this “The Safest Summer Ever.” The two groups are mounting a massive social media campaign to call attention to a range of safe driving issues from distracted and drowsy driving, as well as many other driving skills. The campaign will have different safe driving messages posted on social media every week, with those posts amplified by shares and re-posts by SADD chapters and tens of thousands of SADD members nationwide.
“We’re mobilizing the tens of thousands of student safety advocates in the SADD community at the middle school, high school and college level to help spread important safe driving messages to peers, friends and family,” said SADD President and CEO Rick Birt. “We hope to make this the safest summer ever, not only for teens on the road, but for all drivers and passengers.”
Part of the effort is media outreach. We're arranging for TV interviews nationwide, using SADD student leaders and, in some cases, myself and my colleague at NRSF, Michelle Anderson.
Here are links to two stories that aired on newscasts yesterday in Missouri and Wisconsin. And there's lots more to come.
WXOW-TV ABC 19 LaCrosse/Green Bay WI
KSNF-TV NBC 16 Joplin MO
We've been handling publicity for The Christopher Awards for more than 20 years...actually, closer to 25.
Every year, The Christophers recognize books, TV programs and feature films that recognize the goodness in people, illustrating the Christopher motto "It's better to light one candle than to curse the darkness."
We've been able to get lots of publicity on the winners in their hometowns, as well as a few stories that were syndicated to Catholic papers nationally through Catholic News Service. And "Currents," on the Catholic Channel NetTV did a nice interview this week with one of the book winners, David Davis, who wrote about how injured WWII vets helped shape today disabilities rights.
Here's a link to the 3-1/2 minute interview.
More info on The Christopher Awards is at https://www.christophers.org/awards