The Marlton Rotary Club is partnering with a statewide non-profit campaign to prevent drunk driving by promoting designated driving throughout Evesham Township, club officials have announced.
At their February meeting, club members met with representatives of the John R. Elliott HERO Campaign for Designated Drivers and affirmed their sponsorship of the program, aimed at increasing the use of safe and sober designated drivers throughout the township.
“We are pleased and proud to get behind such an important highway safety initiative,” said Rotary Club President Michael Thompson. “Saving lives by reducing drunk driving throughout the township is important to all of us.”
He said the club will help recruit local businesses to participate in the Highway HEROES program and distribute HERO decals to motorists, who will be asked to display the decals on their rear windows or bumpers to promote the HERO message, “Be a HERO. Be a Designated Driver.”
HERO volunteers who spot the decals will leave behind thank-you cards and gift certificates from local merchants.
The campaign also asks residents to take the campaign’s online HERO Pledge — at HEROCampaign.org — agreeing not to drink and drive, and always have a designated driver whenever alcohol beverages are consumed. In addition to the Rotary Club, the HERO Campaign partners with police, schools and colleges, bar and tavern owners, and NFL and Major League Baseball teams, including the Philadelphia Phillies.
The HERO Campaign was launched Memorial Day at a news conference with Mayor Jaclyn Veasy, Police Chief Christopher Chew and other township officials, where a police car wrapped with the HERO message was unveiled. The campaign is named in memory of Navy Ensign John Elliott of Egg Harbor Township, N.J., who was killed in a collision with a drunk driver in July 2000, two months after graduating with merit from the United States Naval Academy.
For more information about Evesham’s Highway HEROES program, contact the HERO Campaign at (609) 626-3880 or the township’s public affairs office at (856) 988-4423.
