Do you have a car seat sitting in your shed or garage that is unused (and perhaps expired too) and you find it collecting dust year after year?!
Well Rotary has the solution! The Rotary District 5170 Area 7 Clubs (which are the clubs of Santa Cruz County) are doing a car seat drive this weekend (12/10 & 12/11)!
 
We are partnering with Baja Bridges to get the car seats down to---and distributed among---areas of Baja (Mulegé and Santa Rosalia during this drive) where the mortality rate of children in automobile accidents is high.
 
Local fire houses in Baja are rolling out safety programs educating about the importance of car seats and booster seats (similar education programs to those done in the US in the 1970's and 1980's). Now that there is interest, the next problem being experienced is there aren't car seats available for the fire personnel to give out. Fire personnel are asking for more car seats to be brought down for them to distribute among their communities. That's where we come in!
 
Attached is information with four of our drop off locations.
 
We cannot wait to see you and accept your cleaned/all parts included and working car seats next weekend, December 10th & 11th!
 
 
 
 
 
For those wanting more information about our project:

For the first time, Rotary District 5170 Area 7 clubs are working on a unified service project. Our project is in conjunction with Baja Bridges, a non profit organization started by a Rotarian in the Sacramento Delta area. Baja Bridges works in the rural areas of Baja, Mexico (most along Highway One!) and is well connected in that area. (https://www.bajabridges.org/)

They have provided ambulances and fire engines to the local municipalities in Baja. After requesting information about the types of calls that the vehicles are responding to, they realized a majority are car accidents along Highway One, and a majority of lives are lost are children, because there would be 8 people injured in the car wreck but only two ambulances to transport the victims. Usually the children are not wearing car seats, they are seated on mom's lap in the front seat of the van/vehicle. They are also usually the most injured, so the survival rate is lowest.

We will be doing a county-wide car seat drive, we are looking for booster seats & car seats that are cleaned & are in working condition/have all their parts, and we will be collecting them on the same weekend all throughout the county at different drop off sites.
(Because of the different regulations in the US and car seat expiration dates, dumps are usually where car seats end up (if they even accept them, some local dumps will not accept car seats!) so we can promote safety and sustainability in the Rotary Area 7 Car Seat Drive!)

(We will be taking the car seats back to our respective club's storage facilities, then transporting them to the warehouse in Clarksburg (in the Sacramento Delta) where they will be packed into ambulances and trailers and taken down to Baja!)

In order to get them into the hands of the parents in Mexico, the approach will be multi-fold; educational, social and functional.
Educational in why children need to be using car seats for safety. Social in the peer pressure aspect of it, much like the campaigns used here in the US back when seat belt laws were enacted! And functional because those parents who have already "bought in" per se and are asking for car seats from the firemen, but the firemen don't have access to car/booster seats to even give a parent who is asking for a seat for their child.

Our goal via our service project is to help where there is a need. To take what is literally just laying around in local garages, and hopefully save the lives of children.