Donations Save DARE Program

A $20,000 donation by a North Ranch businessman has been credited with saving an anti-drug program in the Conejo Valley.

The donation by Charles Probst capped a $32,500 fund-raising drive initiated by Rene Rodriguez of Newbury Park to restore a second police officer to the DARE program for the Thousand Oaks area.

Rodriguez launched the effort after the Conejo Valley School District, citing budget cuts, discontinued the $30,000 allocation the district gave annually to the program operated by the Sheriff’s Department.

The district’s decision had forced program administrators to cut back the DARE program to a single officer.

Rodriguez, a business owner who emigrated from Puerto Rico, said he began the fund-raising drive “because this country has been good to me, and this is my way of saying thanks.”

Rodriguez presented the funds to the Thousand Oaks City Council on Tuesday.

The Conejo Valley School District tapped other resources to donate $4,000.

In a related item, the Shell Cos. Foundation has donated $3,000 to the sheriff’s DARE program for the county’s unincorporated areas as well as Thousand Oaks, Ojai, Moorpark and Fillmore.

This is the second grant that the oil company foundation has made to the DARE program, in which officers teach elementary school students about avoiding drug and alcohol use.