Every semester, each class has an opportunity to create their own Public Service Announcement (PSA). After the students come up with the ideas for the PSA, DARE Officer Wiinanen fine tunes, films, and edits the 30 second project.
The target audience is usually grades 4th through 7th.
This unique project started when one student recommended that the classes should do a skit or something for the graduation. This evolved to doing a PSA for the graduation. With the generous help of the school district and a local videographer, the DARE Officer filmed the first PSAs to show at the graduation. After the police department purchased equipment, the next semester's PSAs were submitted to the local TV Stations who were excited to show locally produced PSAs.
This has become an exciting project for the DARE students to work on together. Many students describe this is one of their favorite parts of DARE.
This project is designed to do two things. First, the students are attempting to educate and influence other young kids in making wise choices about not abusing drugs. Secondly, this project helps as a review of the lessons taught in DARE and also helps to personalize the message. This will be an event remembered for many years.