Progressive Wednesday

Reviving Niagara: Give

June 13th, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday

Give:

In 2005, 2.1 million kids under 18 were arrested in the United States, this according to the U.S. Department of Justice. To put that in perspective, 2.1 million is equivalent to the entire populations of Detroit and Dallas combined.

Since Niagara Falls is an American treasure, we should all — regardless of the place we currently call home — want to do anything we can to help reduce the overall crime rate in this city and to help the children of this area, many of whom will become adult citizens of the city or county.

Donating to a national organization is good, hell, it’s great, and it’s important because without funding these fantastic privately run organizations, we’d have a choice: go without the services or rely even more on the government, which, to the eyes of Progressive Wednesday, always seems to be lagging behind. It’s like a dog race – we’re greyhounds and the government is a miniature Dachshund.

Okay, before our canine simile gets away from us, let us focus on this simple two-part action. We’d love it if you’d be willing to help out our local chapter of the Police Athletic League. How? You can download their donation form by clicking this sentence. Or you can, maybe for this entire week, use GoodSearch.com as your search engine of choice. By clicking this sentence, you’ll be able to make Good Search work for Niagara PAL. Each time you conduct a search, you’ll raise money for the PAL in Progressive Wednesday’s hometown.

So why PAL? And why our PAL? Here’s why:

• In 2006, Niagara PAL had 19,000 participants in their various activities and programs.
• PAL helps girls and boys participate in baseball, basketball, bicycle safety, football, soccer, softball, and wrestling.
• Niagara PAL participates in conjunction with D.A.R.E., the Girl Scouts, Special Olympics, Cerebral Palsy Recreation Group, and offers counseling and tutoring to kids.
• Niagara PAL also runs, amongst others, two other programs of note: Police Week, and Kidz and Kites.
• One the hallmarks of Niagara PAL is a project called “Every 15 Minutes,” which is a presentation shared with local high school seniors about the dangers of drinking and driving (the name comes from the statistic that every 15 minutes someone dies in an alcohol related car accident). The intense program actually includes visits to an ER and a funeral home. The students also write “final letters” to their parents as if they’d died, and parents write their teens’ “obituaries.”
• Niagara PAL also doles out scholarships based on community service, financial need, academic standing, and attitude.

At the heart of PAL is this: “Juvenile Crime Prevention accomplished by creating better relations between police, citizens, and community youth through a myriad of interactive programs that include the youth in positive endeavors, athletic and non-athletic, within the community structure. The ultimate objective being Juvenile Decency.” And it’s hard to argue with that.