PBA
Donates to DARE
Left
to right: DARE
Officers Sgt. Chris Mc Inerney & Sgt. Dan Dour, PBA President
P.O. Frank Riggio and Councilman Mike O’Hagan, Public Safety
Liaison.
At
the April 25th 2007 meeting of the Glen Rock Mayor and
Council, Glen Rock PBA Local # 110 donated $700 to the Glen Rock
DARE Program.
Through a program initiated
by our D.A.R.E. Officers, and with the financial support of
the Glen Rock Municipal Drug
Alliance and the Glen
Rock P.B.A., officers had their pictures taken and
placed onto the cards. On the back of the card is the
officer's professional background, along with a personal
message.
Kids, as well as adults, are encouraged to walk up to officers
and ask them for their baseball card. It is hoped that this
program will help the children of Glen Rock, develop a stronger
relationship with the police.
In addition to the 21 officer cards, Police Chaplain, Rev.
Dr. Roger Spencer is featured, along with the first departmental
photo (1929), the fire motorcycle officer and a card showing the
evolution of the Department’s police patches.
As new police officers are hired we add them to our
baseball card collection.
History of D.A.R.E.
Since
1993, the Glen Rock Police Department’s D.A.R.E. Unit has been
actively teaching Drug Abuse Resistance Education
curriculum to the students in Glen Rock’s Public Schools. As the
program became more popular, it was brought to the
Academy
of
Our Lady
. Several years later, the program expanded again when the
Glen
Rock
Middle School
started the curriculum. Today the unit consists of four police
officers who are re-assigned from their regular patrol duties to
teach in the schools. Each officer has individually taken over 80
hours of training to become certified as a D.A.R.E. instructor,
not to mention countless hours of preparation time that go into
each lesson. Glen Rock's
original
D.A.R.E. Officers were Captain Garret Merselis (then
a Detective) Retired P.O. William P. Van Dyk Jr. and
Sgt. Dan Dour who has remained active with the program and
now teaches 7th and 8th grade students.
D.A.R.E. Instructors frequently donate their own time and take
students on bowling or skating outings. They also go to great
lengths to make the D.A.R.E. experience quite special, and
something that the kids will remember for years to come. In
February 2002, P.O. Arthur Faber (now retired) and Sgt. Chris Mc Inerney joined the
staff of D.A.R.E. instructors.
(LEFT: Officer's
VanDyk & Dour with the DARE Lion {played by now retired
Officer John Mastick} at a graduation ceremony in May of 2000 at
Central
School
)
In October 2005 P.O. Anna Marie
Mattina became the newest member of the DARE Program.
Sgt. Mc Inerney will continue to teach the DARE program at
Academy
of
Our Lady
and Sgt. Dan Dour will be teaching the sixth grade at the
Glen
Rock
Middle School
. P.O. Mattina has become involved in the 5th and 6th grade
program and visits the schools to meet the
students.
D.A.R.E. classes go far beyond
traditional drug abuse programs. Each section is appropriately
designed for a specific age group and tailored to each individual
class. It not only warns students of the dangers involved in drug
and alcohol use, but it provides students with the skills needed
to recognize and resist the subtle and overt pressures that might
cause them to experiment with drugs and alcohol. D.A.R.E. was
developed in 1983 by the
Los Angeles
,
CA
,
Unified
School District
as a cooperative effort between the school system and the Los
Angeles Police Department. While teaching lessons, our officers
are able to bring job-related experiences to the classroom
designed to explain the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse. Glen
Rock’s D.A.R.E program is partially funded through the Glen
Rock Municipal Alliance, which receives state grant money to
provide substance abuse programs to our community. Generous
donations to the
Alliance
also come from the Glen Rock P.B.A., local businesses and
concerned residents. Without their support, the D.A.R.E. program
would have difficulty maintaining the high standards and goals to
which our instructors adhere.
The
D.A.R.E. officers wish to stress that the values and ideals
presented by this program need to be positively
reinforced at home, both during and after the program
is completed.
If you have any question about the
D.A.R.E. program or wish further information, contact Sgt. Dour,
Sgt. Mc Inerney, or P.O. Mattina. –OR
- visit the DARE America website: www.dare.com
To contact the D.A.R.E. Unit via E-Mail, click
here: D.A.R.E.
UNIT
