by Savannah Shumbris, reporter

On Tuesday, November 4^th, students in the club SADD went to Lancaster for a SADD conference for an enjoyable, yet educational day.

As soon as students walked through the door, people with warm, smiling faces were handing out SADD shirts for everyone. Students then proceeded to get breakfast, which they had a massive selection to choose from, and spent time talking with friends.

“My favorite part was the click it and ticket game challenge along with the sad shuffle,” said Erin Shigo

Next, students had the opening ceremony. The students were told to sit near the stage in a seat.  There many guest speakers, which were very entertaining, and was a big hit to everyone. The first thing students did was have an award ceremony and one of their own, Mrs. Adams, won Advisor of The Year award. Students got up and learned the official “SADD Shuffle” from Craig Tournquist. A guest speaker, Harriet Turk, then spoke and gave her story and some real motivation. She taught students a chant to tell themselves when they are feeling down or comparing themselves to others and do not feel good enough. Last but not least, Hoan Do told students his inspiring story about success.

After the opening ceremony, students were told to go off and explore different workshops. There was a variety to choose from including car safety, break the ice, jeopardy, end the sigma, and traffic safety fair.

“I thought the trip was very educational for us and gave us a lot of education on drunk and distracted driving,” Meghann Principe stated.

Students had to choose three workshops to enter.  The first one a group of students chose was car safety. In this workshop, students proceeded to get in a car with four friends and students had to see how fast they could buckle their seat belts. It was a fun, hectic game that most students enjoyed. Students would win a prize at the end of the day if they  won. After the game students were told to put on the goggles that would show one’s vision of having 0.6% alcohol in his/her system. The students had to unlock the car and seat themselves with their seatbelt on for driving. The process was difficult, but it showed the dangers of driving while intoxicated.

Another workshop chosen was Break the Ice. When students walked into the workshop there was fireplace on the big screen for a “warm” welcome. During this workshop to warm everyone up with each other we did this activity to bond with other students where you were split into two groups and played charades. Then, Gianni Iowa, the leader of the workshop, told students how they could make a difference and what he did to impact his community with SADD.

“I thought putting the goggles on was the best part. It was silly when my friends and I had them on but it showed the seriousness of driving drunk,” RuiNa Gentile said about the traffic safety workshop.

The last workshop of the day was the traffic safety fair. During this workshop students were told to sit in a chair and play this game where they operated a vehicle but they had to choose if they were distracted or intoxicated. They had to complete the course without getting the cops to notice them. Also, the students, once again, were told to put on the goggles that show what they would see intoxicated and they had to play a game of catch which was extremely difficult.

After the workshops, students ate a nutritious lunch and got ready to watch the closing ceremony. During the closing ceremony, the students did the ‘SADD shuffle’ one last time and watched a video about making right choices and decisions.

Overall, the day was successful for the students of SADD and they obtained a lot of worthy information to come back to school and inform their fellow classmates about the safety and precautions of poor decisions.

 

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Robbie Geisinger, attempting to drive with drunk mode