Safe Rides Up And Running for Another Year

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No sooner had the clock struck 10 p.m. last Friday, before the phone (203-869-8445) rang at Safe Rides with a local high school student requesting a ride home from a back Greenwich party. Saturday night saw multiple cell phone calls from a remote wooded area of Greenwich that turned out to be the scene of a high school party attended by 40-50 teens.

Under the newly elected leadership of Julia Moch, President and Lili Nobunaga, Vice President both Seniors at Greenwich High School, the organization is operated by local teens under the auspices of the Transportation Association of Greenwich, a local non-profit in Riverside. Every Friday and Saturday night from 10 p.m. until 1 a.m. during the school year the program provides two vehicles to provide rides to Greenwich teens.

The drivers are paid TAG employees who hold commercial driver’s licenses and there is also an adult-on-premises to oversee the operation, but it is the 50 – 60 teen volunteers who really “drive” the program. They answer the phones and ride along to interface with their peers.

The teens are organized into six teams, led by Sarah Callahan and Stephanie Estrada, both of Greenwich Academy, Diego Jansen of Brunswick and Colin Lauritano, Casey McLaughlin and Alex Schnurr, all from Greenwich High. One more team is yet to be organized by Sacred Heart of Greenwich which returned to classes on Tuesday.

As a Safe Rides program, teens are limited to one ride per night, presumably to their home or the home of a friend. Anyone caught trying to use Safe rides as a “party hopping” service is immediately blacklisted from future rides and callers are warned that this may also lead to the police being notified of the party.

To be removed from the blacklist the offending teen would be required to volunteer two nights themselves for the program before being eligible for future rides.

Clearly there is the opinion is a small portion of the public that this type of service enables teen drinking. As a local physician on the TAG board noted last year, to the contrary, we are trying to teach teens to make responsible decisions after having perhaps made a bad choice. As adults they will then become accustomed to calling Greenwich Taxi or Uber if they have been out socializing and consumed too much alcohol.

TAG took over this program from the Town of Greenwich and the United Way in May of 2015. A one-time grant of $5,000 from the Junior League of Greenwich helped fund that first Spring.

The program which had operated many years out of the local Chapter of the American Red Cross costs about $40,000 a year to operate according to TAG Executive Director Jim Boutelle. “Unfortunately no one ever formally incorporated this organization, so for the time being they are operating under our legal and insurance umbrella.”

TAG is working to modify its 501-c status with the IRS to include this service and modify our corporate designation with the State of CT so that we can do a fundraising mailing. Currently we cannot open a bank account in that name or accept checks made payable to Safe Rides.

Those wishing to support the program can write a check to TAG and designate it for this program. The TAG website, RideTAG.org,  is also equipped to handle these types of restricted donations.

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