DANA POINT : Banquet to Honor Safe Ride Volunteers
Volunteers for the South County Safe Rides program will be thanked in a big way with a banquet at the Ritz Carlton Hotel on Tuesday.
More than 200 students and adults who participated in the program that provides transportation home for teen-agers who have been out drinking will be honored at the event, sponsored by the Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center.
Health officials credited the program with helping prevent teen-age deaths due to alcohol-related accidents.
“Last year, there was not a single student fatality due to drinking and driving” in South County, said Dr. Thomas Shaver, who heads the medical center’s trauma unit.
Safe Rides is an outreach program of the Explorer Division of the Boy Scouts of America.
Students who are too drunk to drive can get a ride home on Friday and Saturday nights by calling the hospital at (800) 273-RIDE. Volunteers staff the phones and respond to the calls for transportation.
The Safe Rides program will be bolstered by a $15,000 donation that will be presented at the banquet by a representative from the discount clothing chain T.J. Maxx.
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