Document 91EvO98y9ozVek7R9YrJw1Gy7

I ' TM (heir individual responsibility, and _ ! along with thof, to bring about a I responsibility of helping to pay I lor the program from which they r will benefit. There are several op, preaches that can be taken. We I decided that the old adage of , trying to teach an old dog new I (ricks was in effect right, so we thought we'd start with the youngsters. If we can start with the youngsters when they become school age, even pre-school oge, and continuously impress them as they grow older that we will even tually have a more safe minded I group of individuals in the com munity. We started that out--some of you have probably heard of this Green Pennant Program which we operated lost year In Allegheny County os a try-out. Some people termed it the Cradle to the Grave Program. It is no more than the adaption of an industrial program that proved to be an outstanding stimulus for the reduction of in dustrial accidents, particularly prevalent during the war when everyone was after "E" Awards. It is identically the some program made applicable to school chil dren in a community. We were faced with the same problem as every other agency. It costs money. Where ore we going to get the money. We refused to go back to industry and say "Give" be cause we believed that you can have an active program which will stimulate o desire to participate. We went to work, started a program, awarded pennants. In stead of "E" Pennants, we called them Green Pennants. The young sters had to have a thirty-day period free of traffic accidents and they won the pennant, and we continued with monthly owards to keep them stimulated. At the end of the year there was a per manent award. When we got through, we looked back to see what we had done. What was the result? How much did it cost? We knew the bills were paid and we thought we'd check up to see where the money came from. The leadership which industry gave to the start of that program did not cost them money. My Board of Directors underwrote and said, "make it self-supporting. It is a good program and if you do the Job the people in the community will appreciate it and will help." That proved to be the case. We asked the adults to join the children in the Green Pennant Program with a sticker for a dol lar. We collected not quite enough to pay the whole bill. How could we keep from going back and asking some individual group, business or industry for a hand out? We staged a benefit baseball game between the Philadelphia A's and the Pittsburgh Pirates. Why did they do it? Because they saw a program in operation benefitting the children and each of the ball clubs told us they want to be a part of the community. Their welfare and future depend upon a good community. They want to be a part of it. If they can do it by ploying a game, they wanted to do it. Without a pro gram they wouldn't have let us in the front door. I am convinced that in oil areas of accident pre-