Mandeville High's SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) Club launched its Safe Driving Campaign in the month of January. Led by board membersAshley Clement, Rose Tusa, Mary Catherine Emory, Casey Johnson,andKailyn Avery, and sponsorNicole St. Paul, the club will concentrate the majority of its activities in the week of Jan. 23-27. The students will focus on all kinds of distracted driving, including sleep deprivation, texting while driving, drinking and driving, and the importance of wearing seatbelts. They hope to educate their fellow students on the dangers of each bad habit by displaying posters of statistics and positive messages throughout the school, as well as showing videos on the morning broadcast announcements. St. Paul said, "We hope everyone will support our Safe Driving Month Fundraiser by buying our tootsie pops and participating in our Buckle-Up Challenge. There will be prizes!" The Buckle-Up Challenge is a SADD Club favorite, a game in which student volunteers are timed as they rotate sitting in every seat of a car, buckling and unbuckling the seatbelt around them. The students with the lowest times win! Tusa said, "I'm looking forward to everything SADD is doing in the upcoming months. Safe driving is so important because it not only affect the driver, but everyone around them." The club will continue the fun in February, when students will be given the opportunity to send paper valentines to each other, writing their friends' names on tiny hearts with the words "I don't drink and drive because of _____."
Brittany Zawodniak