A good cause

I have a friend who is a Child Passenger Safety Technician. She is passionate about car seats and making sure children are safe in cars. This passion helped her a couple of years ago when her family was involved in a terrible rollover accident - because all three of her children were in the proper car seats and all three were rear-facing (even the six-year-old!), the worst injury was a broken leg. It could have been much worse.

My friend is promoting the State Farm Neighborhood Assist program on Facebook. One of the causes that is seeking votes is called Safe and Green.

Here is the summary at the Facebook page:

What is the mission of your cause?

To reduce the number of deaths and injuries of children in car crashes through education & advocacy.

How would you use the $25,000 to address an unmet need in your community?

We would use this grant to expand a pilot education and recycling program for unusable safety seats in communities from Long Beach across Los Angeles County. Staff time would be used to approach local businesses, community groups, family agencies, and environmental groups to generate participation in the network. We would develop educational materials to teach parents how to assess their children’s safety seats to ensure that their children are riding safely in the car. We would then put together a media and publicity campaign to promote the messages of safe car seat use, safe disposal of unusable seats, and recycling. We already have received considerable interest in the concept of enhancing safety through promoting recycling from Los Angeles media, making it a newsworthy way to promote protecting kids in the car. We would work with organizations that provide free or low-cost new safety seats to help low-income families find safe alternatives and avoid old, risky seats.

Each person can vote 10 times per day. It's as simple as clicking. Do you have a few seconds to vote? It may not be in your neighborhood (and you can check at that page for causes that are), but it can potentially save lives.