$120,000 Grant Spurs California Youths to Build Safe Driving Programs

FRESNO, Calif., Nov. 22, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- California youths from dozens of communities will be brainstorming, building and launching their own safe driving campaigns thanks to a $120,000 grant from The Allstate Foundation. The award was announced today in Fresno where one of many peer-to-peer programs will take place.

The Fresno Police Department joined area leaders, Allstate and the California Friday Night Live Partnership of Tulare County to unveil Youth-to-Youth: Driving the Change. The Friday Night Live Partnership will coordinate Youth-to-Youth: Driving the Change across California, distributing local grants to help Friday Night Live youth leaders host 30 traffic safety events across California. Those youth leaders will be encouraging their friends and classmates to eliminate distractions while driving. Friday Night Live has chapters in 54 California counties.

"This is an exciting teen-led effort to reduce traffic accidents and improve our communities for everyone's benefit," according to Bob Warner, an Allstate agency owner in Clovis. "Across the nation, nearly 3,500 teens die annually in accidents caused by distracted driving—more than 300,000 teens are injured. This will help reduce those crashes."

"Building partnerships like this encourages positive and healthy development for our young people and engages them to become active leaders," says Jim Kooler, California Friday Night Live Partnership Director. "These traffic safety summits will allow California youths to lead their peers in reducing distracted driving collisions."

The California youth traffic safety programs will include:

• X The TXT pledge drives to eliminate cell phone use while driving
• New social media Internet sites for local teens to share distracted driving stories and advice with other teens statewide and across the country
• Involvement from local police and traffic safety officials
• High school campus events to increase program awareness

X The TXT

Fresno teens wasted no time getting the ball rolling, inviting Fresno police chief Jerry Dyer and other area leaders to take the Allstate Foundation X The TXT pledge to not text while driving. These leaders placed their thumbprints on Allstate's X The TXT banner as a symbol of their commitment not to text and drive, and also received pledge cards to use at home so every driver in the family can pledge not to text and drive. Dyer calls the pledge cards a daily visual reminder of the commitment to reduce driving distractions.

The Allstate Foundation

Established in 1952, The Allstate Foundation is an independent, charitable organization made possible by subsidiaries of The Allstate Corporation. The Allstate Foundation strives to make our communities and our nation a better and safer place to live through partnerships with non-profit organizations promoting "safe and vital communities," "tolerance, inclusion, and diversity" and "economic empowerment." Teen safe driving and building financial independence for domestic violence survivors have been priority issues for the Foundation since 2005. For more information, visit www.ProtectTeenDrivers.com.

SOURCE The Allstate Foundation

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