This is the first iteration of Club of the Month.  This month’s featured club is Distracted Driving Club.  Distracted Driving Club is dedicated to end distracted driving and the unfortunate deaths that too often come with it.  I spoke with club leader Amy Wang for more information:

The Eyrie: What is the goal of Distracted Driving Club?  What do you want to achieve as a leader?

Wang: The goal of it is just to raise awareness of it in our high school and our community.  What we want to achieve is to get more people involved in the club having people actually act on their word.  Everyone knows not to drive distracted, but whether or not they do it is a whole other issue.

E: What activities does Distracted Driving Club do on a monthly basis?

W: Every month, we either get a speaker to come in (this past meeting, we had Mr. Dixit, the founder [of the Shreya R. Dixit Memorial Foundation] come in and talk to the club) and events that we’re invited to.  The leadership team went to the Towards Zero Deaths conference in St. Paul, and we got to speak in front of 150 people about our club, what were doing, and high school distracted driving as a whole.  We just got invited to another conference for Cargill in February.

E: Can you tell me some ways Distracted Driving Club gets involved with the community?  What future activities do you have planned?

W: Over the summer, we helped the Shreya R. Dixit Foundation, the organization we’re partnered with, with their annual Raksha Walk.  A lot of people showed up.  We did a lot of promotion with local media sources, like Kare 11, Star Tribune, and Eden Prairie News to promote the event.  We had a booth [at the walk] to raise awareness about our school club.  In the school, we just started a lollipop fundraiser where people can buy a lollipop for a dollar and the money will go towards the Foundation and raise awareness about distracted driving.  For future plans, we want to do some sort of workshop where we can get Mr. Dixit to come in to talk.

E: What are you proudest of in your time as a leader of Distracted Driving Club?

W: It has to be the Raksha Walk because we put so much time and energy into promoting it and making it an event that was really big and special, since this year was the ten-year anniversary.  Seeing how many people came together at the event, showed up, ran, or walked was really fulfilling.

E: What makes you passionate about ending distracted driving?

W: I’ve been involved in the issue for a while now and have seen how many people have been affected by it, whether in a small or really big way.  I’ve had a chance to meet people who’ve lost their family members, their kids, or their siblings.  It’s just a really moving story to hear, and it’s just a major issue.