POSTED BY: BOB KNOTTS
We are excited to announce a major expansion of our innovative, and highly effective, “I Care: Just Let Me Drive” teen driver safety program. Now comes “I Care 2.0,” something to teach parents how to help their kids drive safely. It’s an important new effort generously funded by a $15,000 grant from our great partners at State Farm, continuing the company’s consistent commitment to I Care.
High school junior Rina Matarasso knows why this is needed. She recognizes that parents can be just as clueless on the highways as their teenage children. And she also understands this hugely influences the driving habits of those teen drivers. Our new I Care 2.0 campaign will show parents how to become better role models – and help reduce the auto accidents that remain the number one cause of deaths among U.S. teenagers. “Parents definitely need to learn that their driving behavior is a role model for their kids,” says Rina, who heads a student team working on the I Care campaign. “And too often it’s a very bad role model!” Research consistently proves parental driving habits significantly affect the on-the-road behavior of teen drivers. The Humanity Project’s I Care driver safety program, created by teens for teens, will reach out to adults in new ways so that parents understand this reality – and become effective anti-distracted driving educators for their children. I Care 2.0 will connect with parents in the community through local organizations, schools and State Farm agents, offering new tools and helpful information for parents. These will be developed with the active assistance of teenagers themselves. Our kid-to-adult message will be simple and clear: “Don’t tell us what to do on the highway. Show us what to do by always doing it yourself.” I Care already connects with thousands of teens in South Florida, and many tens of thousands more nationally, through Humanity Project sponsor, Google. The program includes a free full-color book and website (www.thehumanityproject.com/icare) as well as multiple social media pages, videos and more. I Care also is being used by three Florida county court systems to date, including Broward and Miami-Dade counties. As always, we are profoundly grateful to our friends at State Farm. We truly could not do it without this public-spirited company and we look forward to expanding our partnership with them through I Care 2.0. Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital and Barry University are co-sponsors of the I Care program and we are deeply appreciative for their support as well.
As you may know, State Farm and its affiliates together make up the largest provider of car insurance in the U.S. Their agents serve 81 million policies and accounts, including auto, home, life and health policies. For more information, please visit www.statefarm.com. And stay tuned as we create I Care 2.0 in the coming months. We’ll tell you all the important details about this bold new effort to save teen lives by working with parents. With help from State Farm and our teen volunteers, we may just be able to help many more parents get a clue at last.
