Project Lundy will carry message of safe driving
BY ELANA ARON Correspondent
Freehold Township High School senior Samantha Patino has decided to turn pain and loss into something meaningful.

Patino and several of her friends at FTHS have started a program to educate high school sophomores about the importance of safe and responsible driving.

The program is called Project Lundy and is named in honor of Andrew Lundy, a friend of Patino who was killed in a motor vehicle accident on Kozloski Road, Freehold Township, earlier

this year. Lundy, 16, was a student at Freehold High School, Freehold Borough. Two other FHS students and a woman from Old Bridge were killed in the accident.

There have been several fatal motor vehicle accidents involving teenagers within the last few months in the area. Patino said she realized the need for an effective driver's safety program after attending a different program.

"It was impersonal, they used scare tactics and no one took it seriously," the FTHS senior said. "We wanted to make it more personal, to bring it to a more personal level. It has a bigger impact when it's kids talking to kids. We don't want to talk at them."

Project Lundy was started this summer. Patino and others will be going into sophomore classrooms to meet with students who have yet to receive a driver's permit.

"We're going into sophomore classes because they'll be getting their permits now," she said. "We wanted to target them before they started driving."

Patino and her friends will be giving a 45-minute presentation in which they will discuss speeding, cell phone use, and other important safety issues. The program will be held once during each marking period.

"We have a lesson plan," she explained. "We're going to be discussing our particular accident. We want the kids to relate. Everyone I've been talking to thinks it's an awesome idea."

Patino, who is working with the vice principal of her school and with police officers, has created posters of pictures from motor vehicle accidents, along with Polaroid shots of people who are affected by those accidents.

"We want [the students] to see all the lives affected from that one accident," she said. "Driving recklessly affects the people in your lives. It's good therapy to turn something good out of what happened."