Neighborhood resident Liza Orchard is working hard to make sure our kids are safe on prom night.
This year, Orchard, with the support of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), is launching BuzzFree Prom, a pilot program to drive student participation in MADD’s “PROMise To Keep It Safe” initiative.
“Most teenagers think they’re impenetrable, that nothing’s ever going to happen to them,” Orchard says. “They often don’t recognize the benefit of making the right choice until it’s too late.”
Orchard is hoping that by appealing to teenagers on their level, she can change that. And, she says, it’s possible to do all this “without the doom and gloom” of the usual scare tactics. But how?
By offering them material rewards. Under Orchard’s program, students who sign a pledge not to drink on prom night will receive a BuzzFree Prom ID number, which may then be used to obtain various incentives from sponsors and merchants.
“The ID has a coded number, and they can go online and register that ID number,” Orchard says. “From there, they can drill down on the Web site where the ID will get them discounts on things they need for prom — dresses, tuxedos, stuff like that.”
Sponsoring merchants so far include Kinko’s, which will offer all BuzzFree Prom participants a 50 percent discount with their ID. Additional merchants include Jostens, Gingiss Formalwear and McShan Florist.
BuzzFree Prom is just one extension of Orchard’s brainchild, Mocktail Party, which creates alcohol-free promotions and party CDs to create revenue for MADD and other related charities. The company’s mission is to provide environments that support drinking responsibly by making the choice to do so simple, fun and worth acknowledging.
The natural assumption is that Orchard must be a bit of a teetotaler, but she’s quick to assert that’s not the case. Though she did lose a friend to a drunk driver in 1986, she stresses she’s not out to preach and judge.
“It’s not about getting people to quit drinking,” she says. “It’s about helping the host and hostess cater to the person who wants to be responsible, so that if there is a margarita machine, there is one right next to it that is tequila-free.”
Orchard admits she loves the occasional margarita. But, she adds, as far as BuzzFree Prom is concerned: “This kind of message — coming from a person who drinks — is a much better place to come from than if you’re going to preach about responsibility.”
And she doesn’t have blinders on either. She realizes that once kids sign the pledge, there is nothing to keep them from drinking on prom night.
“But the fact is, they made a choice, and it’s going to be in the back of their minds. Hopefully there’s that little guy on your shoulder who says, ‘You said you wouldn’t do this.’ That’s all we can do,” she says.
So far, the
DISD Superintendent Mike Moses is excited about the program’s possibilities.
“With the growing number of current statistics of alcohol-related car crashes involving teenage drivers and other tragic results of underage drinking, we desperately need something in the Metroplex to encourage students to remain sober on prom night,” he says.
Adds Orchard, “If you acknowledge kids for making the responsible decision at that moment, and then reward them, they will actually entertain making that choice.”
