Fifteen area schools have been awarded grants for project prom and graduation events. The $200 awards for student lock-in events come from the Southeast Coalition for Roadway Safety.
Funding assists with event expenses such as location rental, food, or entertainment. Schools will also receive roadway safety educational items to share with students, according to the Missouri Department of Transportation.
To be eligible, schools must include a presentation or activity educating students on highway safety issues during the lock-in or the week of the event. With traffic fatalities on the rise, safety education is critical to reducing serious injuries and deaths on Missouri’s roadways. Schools are choosing to educate students in a variety of ways including presentations and programs by the local law enforcement, Missouri State Highway Patrol, Safe and Sober, and docudramas.
“We are so grateful to be a recipient of the grant. In order to make project graduation a success, it takes lots of activities and planning. We feel very strongly seniors need to be educated on a variety of roadway safety concerns as they venture into adulthood. There are so many distractions and opportunities for them to make choices, they need to be educated on how to make the correct ones,” says Amber Scudder, parent and co-coordinator of Thomas W. Kelly High School project graduation.
Awards have been made to the following schools in this area:
Campbell High School
Clarkton High School
Dexter High School
Doniphan High School
East Carter County High School
Greenville High School
Malden High School
Naylor High School
Poplar Bluff High School
Richland High School
Risco High School
Southern Reynolds County High School
Twin Rivers High School
Van Buren High School