The president of the newly inaugurated Wilton SafeRides program, WHS student Lauren Safko, let town officials know that the program had a very successful first weekend. “On a scale of one to ten (from the perspective of both adult and youth volunteers and passengers) both nights were undoubtedly a TEN!” she wrote in an email sent to the Board of Selectmen as well as the Wilton Police Department and Wilton Volunteer Ambulance Corps.
On Friday, Oct. 4 and Saturday, Oct. 5, the program, which operates at Trackside Teen Center, was available from 10 p.m. until 2 a.m., each night, and was staffed with eight youth volunteers as well as one adult volunteer. On Friday night the program received calls from four WHS teens; on Saturday the number of rides increased to twenty-four as the result of twelve calls to 203.834.CARE.
Safko wrote that, “Since the SATs were given on Saturday morning at WHS, and this was our very first weekend, we are very excited and encouraged by the initial response from our fellow students. We fully expect that the number of calls to Wilton SafeRides will only increase from here as word of our service gets out.”
She reported that the volunteers were thrilled to be a part of the SafeRides team and that Trackside is the perfect venue from which to operate, writing, “All volunteers said they had a blast spending their night at Trackside, and there was definitely no shortage of activities for them to pass the time between calls.”
At Monday evening’s Board of Selectmen meeting, the report earned kudos from officials.
“The good news that it actually seems to do something, it seems to be a good start,” Selectman Ted Hoffstatter said. First Selectman Bill Brennan agreed: “It’s great that it starts off with a bang.”