I like the post from Kip on Sept 5, 2006. There event sounds very similar to ours. The High School kids really got into the event. This is the only event of the year where they can camp out at the city park, stay up all night and have a party with their friends.
Unfortunately, too many kids consider Relay in only those terms, a great place to party. This past year we adopted a "wrist band" policy. Youth under 18 yrs of age, were required to have a permission slip signed by their parents and submitted at bank night. Youth chaperone forms were also required at bank night at a ratio of 1 chaperone / 10 kids. Chaperones were provided the wrist bands and the roster for their team at a meeting the day of the event. The chaperones were asked to monitor the kids during the event.
Even with this practice, we still had hundreds of kids coming to the event around luminaria just to hang out and have fun. It was a challenge to keep checking on kids and asking those without wristbands to leave the event after midnight (city curfew time)
I am looking for ideas on how to curb the "party" attitude, while reinforcing and encouraging the youth to participate and raise money.
Trackback URL for this post:
http://www.relayforlife.org/relay/trackback/118
September 6, 2006 - 1:00pm
- Login or register to post comments
Printer-friendly version
PDF version
This is my 5th year as a
This is my 5th year as a team captain at my youth run relay and this year i am also the Activities and ceremonies chair person for my college relay.
At home for secruity we walk the track around the football field. Its completely gated around the outside so all gate doors are locked except for the main door so you can only enter and leave through there. Any one under 18 has to have a waiver signed by a parent. Our Realy starts at 5pm, at that time many people come and go through the evening. For example a lot of times my teams will stop by at different times. Our luminaria ceremony is held at 11. There are many poeple who come just for that. Once the ceremony is over they make an announcement saying that they are going to be closing the gates. If you are under 18 that means you are stuck in once they close the gates unless you leave with a parent. Usaully 2 people sit at the gate to make sure no one leaves. The gates are then opened at 5am and people are allowed to leave. We dont do writst bands and teams are not required to have chaperones. It works very well. I dont think there have ever been huge problems.
AS far as the "party" attitude goes, im a little confused. When i think of party, i think drinking, being loud and crazy... granted im a college student but. Any way, its not like these kids are doing illegal things (right?). Relay is really important to me. When i first started doing relay i though wow it looks fun. My friends and I can support a good cause (cancer has effected a lot of us) but also hang out with each other and have some fun. WE participate in the activities there but we also have our own things to do. Everyone at our relay is like that. We participate but we also have our own thing going on. I guess we all have our own "parties" if thats what you want to call them. I dont see the problem. We are all still walking and we know why we are here. I feel like you are trying to take out some of the fun that we put in. In those early hours we have some thing that keeps us up and amused.
Curtail the "Party" Attitude!
Kurt,
With myself being the event chair for the Youth Relay For Life in Humboldt County (eureka,Ca) the only participants are the high school and middle school youth, with the surrounding high schools having teachers be chaperones. We also use the purple Relay wristbands to distinguish who is able to stay all night and who is not.
What we do to curb the "party" attitude is to have actual police there at the event (not "rent-a-cops"), and then the "rent-a-cops" are the people at the entrance checking bags and bottles for any substances....The main thing that we do to curb this attitude, is when I go to schools to present and get the students involved, I tell them right there that if they are caught, the police will be called, parents will be called, they will be kicked out and proper consequences will be taken. The other thing that we really implement is that this event is only for 24 hours, they will have Saturday and Sunday night to party, but to just come have clean fun at our Youth Relay.
With myself being the event chair and a high school senior, my friends and classmates all respect what I say. So it might be a good idea to have a student help present, when students present to students, the main point actually sinks in instead of going in one ear and out the other.... I hope you can find a solution.
You know, the fact that the
You know, the fact that the kids friends DO come could be used as a fundraising advantage! Perhaps you can start your relay earlier or have a pre-relay party or something, themed like a high school dance or something, and charge a small admission if you're not part of a team, and be sure to have lots of snacks that kids love at a snack bar, like ice cream bars, soda, candy, that sort of stuff. Then have a time when they have to leave, say 11ish, and anyone caught without a wristband afterwards will have to be escorted off. I'm sure you could raise alot of money this way. If there's an indoor track somewhere in your town, you can plan to have the relay there, and have the lights turned off for luminaria time much earlier (since you say the kids show up around then). And then maybe you could show on a huge projector the youth recruitment video (such fun to watch) and show what the relay is REALLY about! When I first went to the Relay for Life, I was in high school and I went just thinking oh, stay up late and hang with my friends. But then I saw how much everyone was into it (it wasn't a youth one, which probably helped, because then you could see exactly how many people were affected and into this), and now, one year later, i'm a team captain with a 2500 dollar fundraising goal.
We are a youth team
My name is Emily. I am the captain of a team totally made up of high school students. We participated in the Lancaster, PA relay(# 4 in the country) in 2006 for this first time and will be back in 2007. Last year we raised over $16000 in honor of our friend, Amy who was diagnosed with Stage 4 Hodgkin's Lymphoma of the bone. We were the top new team and the 12th most successful(out of more than 180 teams) in the entire relay that earned over $1 million last year. I know many people feel that having youth teams is a real pain and all they want to do is party, but I think the attached video may change your mind. We did have some support from my parents, the Relay committee and others, but we did most of the work ourselves. This year Amy is in remission and has been selected as the Honorary Chair for the Lancaster Relay. I have been named to the Steering Committee with the task of recruiting and assisting more youth teams to participate.
Please enjoy our video
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3592230154512962865
Youth Events
Hi~
I am the event chair for an all youth event. Of course we do have a lot of adult involment as well! However we have somewhat of the same problem as you do! One thing that we have decided to do is to have one adult per four youth with team sizes being from 10-15 people. I have a really hard time asking people to leave the event becuase i see it as a fundraising event and a time to celebrate but i understand. Last year we had our event inside of the shcool. The first indoor youth relay in the state of Wyoming however we are taking the event outdoors this year! So we are going to for youth teams providing tents for those teams (through donations) so that we have tents we can get a look into and so that we can have supervision. We have sever cops at the site and emergency workers. One of our committee event chairs main job is security, supervision and safety. It is one of the largest parts of the event. If you need ask me any other questions just let me know...i like your idea about the bands. but i did last year just have a time for open house. Hope that helps i know its a little bobbled.
Walter Wilson
D.R.I.V.E.
Burns District 2 Event Chair
regarding Youth Involvement Security
Hey there - I'm an ACS staff partner in the Puget Sound Region. The Eastlake HS relay was a first year, all-youth Relay, and didn't really have any problems with youth and security. A couple thoughts on how that worked out
- Facility managment: every gate in and out of the stadium was locked, with the exception of the ticket gate. That way there was only 1 way in and out of the stadium. Parent/chaperone volunteers staffed that gate, allowing the security officers to roam through the event. Cell phones were used for communication, if the need arose.
- The security was done by the local school resource officer. He is an officer with the local police depratment, who contracts out the school district. He knew every single student there, and was very pro-active. I think that just having him on site helped youth keep their perspective on what was "ok" and "not ok".
- Feel free to send me an email - duncan.libby@cancer.org - and we can chat back and forth more... there is a lot that can be done, and in all honesty - I think that the potential for youth involvement in Relay is unlimited. In almost every relay I've been a part of, the most spirited teams, the highest fundraisers, etc. are almost always youth teams, or youth individuals. Best of luck with the Relay.
-Duncan
youth involvement
I am the Chair for our event, last year was my first year as co-chair. We had about 20 youth teams (we have excellent cooperation from each of our schools). We had similar problems with our youth teams. I am glad to hear the wrist bands helped, that is something I was considering. You had also mentioned you have the youth sign a permission slip and the chaperons sign forms. Do you use an ACS waiver or did you come up with something different? Do you police the tent area to make sure the chaperons stayed? or how did you handle that? We are considering a "Tent City Committee". Any advice in this area would be greatly appreciated.
In regards to "curbing the party attitude" we also had that problem. I just returned from Leadership Univ. A suggestion that was made, is to really instill in the teams (youth especially) a mission theme and make sure they understand the mission of the ACS and of Relay. Also it was suggested to make sure there are activities for them throughout the night that encourage the mission attitude rather than the party attitude. I thought it sounded like a good idea.
Joined: 2006-08-04