All about the “Tag, You’re It!” Campaign Drive

What’s all this talk lately of trying to boost the sales of the Florida Police Athletic League specialty license tag? L.B. Scott, executive director of the State of Florida Police Athletic/Activities Leagues (SFAPAL) summed it up: “The tag is our only dedicated source of funding for our youth programs. We’ve got to increase the sales because we’re growing, and every time we grow, it requires more money for the youth events because they get larger.”

To promote the tag, SFAPAL has turned to good friends at the McCormick Agency, a public relations firm in Jacksonville, Florida, who have mapped out a strategy. “The main theme is to make people aware of PAL and what this tag does. It’s all for the kids really,” said Joey Gallina, a public relations specialist with the agency.

Describing the tag campaign as “a multi-tiered approach,” Joey said one part of the plan utilizes volunteers from the state’s major PAL regions in a number of ways to market the tag. Those ways may include setting up tables with promotional materials at tag agency offices, at police departments, at sporting events, or at grocery stores. “The challenge is to get the PALs to use their kids out there,” Joey said. “You walk by a Publix and see little Girl Scouts selling cookies. You go buy a box. Same thing with PAL. You’ve got kids from the area saying, ‘Sponsor a PAL tag; they’re helping me. It’s all for us.’ It makes you realize the police and PAL are doing some great things for kids who wouldn’t have the opportunity if it weren’t for PAL.”

PAL kids who volunteer to help in the tag campaign will earn community service hours. For a limited time in the fall, 2005, SFAPAL offered an extra incentive for local PAL chapters: PALs with kids who participated in the tag campaign could qualify up to four kids and one adult for admission to the annual Youth Directors’ Conference at Walt Disney World. Holiday Builders, an invaluable PAL supporter, encouraged PAL kids to place promotional tag materials in Holiday Builders’ model homes, which provided an additional way for the kids to qualify for the community service hours and the Disney conference. Of course, Joey Gallina pointed out, the more PAL volunteers who can help out in the local communities with the tag campaign, the more people will know about PAL.

On other fronts of the campaign, Joey had coordinated the production of two radio spots and was ready to release them to major media markets. He continued to work on scheduling sheriffs and chiefs from different areas in Florida to appear in public service announcements (PSAs) to push the tag. He was contacting various tax collector’s offices in the state to encourage a “PAL Tag Day,” a day on which the office employees would wear PAL T-shirts and have lots of PAL tag materials on display.

“[The tag campaign] is a grass-roots effort because [SFAPAL] doesn’t have any money to market the tag per se with advertising,” Joey said. “It kind of handicaps them.” The McCormick Agency is working with PAL to lobby for legislation that would allow SFAPAL to use 15% of the generated funds for administrative costs and 10% for promotion and marketing for the tag. “That would really release the handcuffs,” Joey said.

This effort is necessary because the Police Athletic League is one of the few state organizations in Florida that can’t use the funds generated from specialty tag sales for tag promotion or administration. Currently, the state limits the PAL tag fees to providing “educational materials, athletic equipment, transportation, food, medical check-ups, counseling, scholarships, and other direct expenses incurred by the league in conducting its youth programs.”

“Right now, 100% goes into the program and that’s great,” Joey said. “State PAL sponsors all the stuff the kids go to,” Joey said, “all the programs, all the sporting events, everything. But they’ve hit a wall in the top 25% of tag sales, and they can’t break that top fifteen. They can’t market like the other tags can. For some of the other tags, the money goes to other things besides their main focus, while the State PAL tag money goes to the kids. Everything they do is for the kids.”

Encouraging news is that since the Police Athletic League specialty tag came out in 1997, its sales have steadily increased. The 2004 Specialty Plate Sales Rankings list the PAL tag as twenty-fourth, with 16, 419 tags sold last year. The market is there for specialty tags. Supporters appreciate being able to contribute to a worthy cause and at the same time allow their vehicle to broadcast a message of that support. We think the Police Athletic League is one of the best of those worthy causes. Getting that word out is what the “Tag, You’re It” campaign is all about. Are you driving with a PAL tag?

In 2001 the State of Florida Association Police Athletic/Activities Leagues (SFAPAL) instituted the annual State PAL Field Day. Florida PAL, recognizing that there is a time to have fun and compete and then there is just a time to just have fun, added this non-traditional event to its busy schedule. The last field days (2004 and 2005), which were successful, had been hosted by Water Mania which closed its doors in 2006, which left the state office Executive Director, Mr. L.B. Scott with a big void to fill. The state pal field day is an opportunity for Florida PAL youth and adults to get together in a non-competitive environment. And an added benefit is that it doesn’t cost members anything. All participants get a t-shirt and a meal for being involved. “Our goal with Field Day is to create a PAL family reunion type atmosphere, where we can all get together and just have a good time being PAL” stated, the Florida PAL Program and Events Manager, Ms. Rhonda Scott.

In 2006, Winter Haven PAL hosted the event. The state office began to seek accommodations at other water parks in the state and found out that accommodating large groups of State PAL’s size is not the highest priority during tourist season. After many unsuccessful negotiations with Universal, Bush Gardens, and Sea World, the state office decided to contact the Walt Disney World Resort, which has hosted many Florida PAL events over the years, and within a short week the negotiations were made and the contracts signed!

The State of Florida Association of Police Athletic/Activities Leagues Inc. held its seventh annual state field day on June 23, 2007 at Disney’s Blizzard Beach in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. Participation has increased each year, but thanks to the Disney name the participation doubled. Field Day had over 250 participants with (22) twenty-two member chapters in attendance. Registration took place that Saturday morning at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort Conference Center. It went extremely well thanks to the State office utilizing Kids Trax for issuing of cards and check in. Members received tickets to Blizzard Beach as well as meal vouchers and a commemorative T-shirt. After registering the groups proceeded over to Blizzard Beach.

Blizzard Beach’s (66-acre water adventure park) proved an ideal backdrop for a family reunion like atmosphere.

New adventures at every turn and for all ages which is a real plus for state PAL. Perhaps the WDW website states it best…

Disney legend has it that after a freak winter storm blanketed the area with snow, Florida's first ski resort was born. When temperatures returned to normal, the powdery snow turned to slippery slush. Slalom courses, bobsled and toboggan runs became downhill waterslides. The chair lift carried swimmers instead of skiers. The ski jump became the tallest, fastest waterslide in the nation. You are invited to what has become Disney's Blizzard Beach, the most slushy, slippery, exhilarating beach water park anywhere!

As if that wasn’t enough build up, Blizzard Beach is home to over twelve different attractions, the Downhill Double Dipper, Slush Gusher, Cross Country Creek, and Toboggan Racers to name a few. Perhaps the most memorable of them all is the Summit Plummet described below…

Dare to take the vertical plunge from the top of the world's tallest and fastest free-fall body slide. At an exhilarating height of 120 feet, this sky-scraping ski jump of a thrill ride drops you down the slopes of Mount Gushmore at a speed-limit-breaking 55 miles per hour for a 360-foot long trip back to the lower atmosphere.

Now, doesn’t that sound like a wild ride…all of the before mentioned attractions and a good meal, all compliments of Florida PAL. “We’ve often had non-members call in trying to attend the event” said Florida PAL Executive Director, Mr. L.B. Scott.

We want the youth from various PALs to mingle and hopefully form long term friendships.” Ms. Rhonda Scott, Florida PAL Program and Events Manager said. Thanks to year round festivities, kids involved in Florida PAL activities, more often than not, have already met each other so by the time Field Day takes place many of the youth look at it as a great opportunity to get to know each other better without the pressure of competition.

To go from having the event at Water Mania, which was more contained, to having it at a Disney water park was scary proposition to state office staff but after experiencing the whole thing first hand PAL Illustrated has determined that it was a great move.

If this years Field Day was any indication of how other Florida PAL events were PAL Illustrated is sure that the members of the Florida PAL family had a great time and it meant more to them than just water fun and t-shirts. The participants took home more than great memories; they took home a sense of family and common goals. Youth and adults alike made new friends and solidified current relationships. This was truly more than an event, it was a family reunion and PAL Illustrated hopes that even more PALs sign up for next years Field Day because even if the location changes the feeling of kinship will always be the same.

Police Athletic League (PAL) youth directors are doing good deeds and finding that helping others is very satisfying. We’ve heard of some outstanding community service projects: Charlotte County PAL youth directors helped at a shelter when Hurricane Charley ripped into Florida’s southwest coast. West Palm Beach PAL youth directors served as “victims” in a mock disaster drill. Ormond Beach and New Smyrna Beach youth directors cleaned an old, neglected cemetery. Yay!

These hard working young people are part of the State of Florida Association of Police Athletic Leagues’ (SFAPAL) Youth Directors’ Council (YDC), a state-wide PAL program designed to teach leadership skills and encourage community service. The payoff for the young people? Good feelings generated by good deeds; camaraderie with their PAL friends, and leadership abilities that translate into many other facets of their lives. In addition, the opportunity to attend the YDC annual conference at DisneyWorld--at no cost to themselves--is an added inducement for participation.

Friday, August 13, 2004, was a very unlucky day for Charlotte County. Hurricane Charley strong-armed his way into the area, leaving a path of destruction. In all the subsequent turmoil, the Charlotte County PAL youth directors, on their own initiative, organized themselves to help in a nearby shelter.

After the storm, Deputy Keith Depersia, the Charlotte County PAL director, was called in for full-time emergency police duty in the county. “The kids took it upon themselves to volunteer in the shelters,” he related. “The shelter here in town [Englewood] was the middle school where most of the kids went through, so they know the school inside and out. They just went up there and helped the Red Cross. They were running back and forth, doing errands. They were having fun while they were doing this; it was something where they could socialize, too. A couple of them even helped the elderly to the bathroom and to get around. It was good to see them do this without any direction [from me].”

Charlotte County PAL’s YDC has about twenty-one young people participating, and has been in existence for six years. “It’s [the program’s] just getting stronger and stronger every year,” Depersia said.

The PAL programs in the county are housed in two buildings, one in Englewood, where the PAL program started six years ago, and the other in nearby Port Charlotte. Englewood had minimal damage from the hurricane, the most significant problem being the PAL van, which was “hammered,” according to Depersia. But, he added, “we lost the entire building in Port Charlotte. So now we have to drop back and punt. I can’t even offer services to those kids right now.”

“My task this year is to get all of my [YDC] kids CPR certified and registered with the local Red Cross so they can participate in disaster call-outs,” Officer Stephanie Patterson, director of the West Palm Beach PAL, told PAL ILLUSTRATED in the fall of 2004.

Earlier, in March 2004, West Palm Beach PAL youth directors had served as “victims” in a mock disaster drill organized for the city-sponsored CERT [Citizen Emergency Response Team], as part of five days of disaster response training. “My kids got made up like burn victims, or some type of traumatic injury victim, so it was neat,” Patterson said. “They did all the face art on them, put on all the blood stains on them. The kids got a kick out of it. It was fun. They talked about it for days.

“Next year when the city puts on its mock disaster drill, the kids will be like the responders, not the victims, so they can work side by side with the medics. It gives them a goal.”

This particular project to become part of a disaster response team is a little out of ordinary for this YDC group, who very often are working in clean-ups around the community. “The kids didn’t say they were tired of clean-ups, but I know, as a kid, I wouldn’t always like that,” Patterson said. That’s why she’s on the alert for different ways the youth can serve their community. At various times of the year, the kids find benefactors to sponsor them in community walks for charities, such as the Heart Association, or for cancer awareness.

“Every now and then something more fun will come along,” Patterson said. As the 2004 school year got underway, the West Palm Beach youth directors organized a school back pack giveaway in a low income area of the city. The kids used money from police department forfeiture funds to purchase fifty packs that the YDC distributed. “That worked out very well,” according to Patterson, who added they will probably plan another back pack give away for a different school in January.

“If we’re not doing things, the kids are calling me on the phone, ‘Officer Patterson, we haven’t met in a couple of weeks--what’s going on?’ That’s rewarding to know they’re looking forward to it,” Patterson told us.

West Palm Beach YDC is only into its second year of operations, but already has twenty-eight participants. “We have a big group, and it’s a good group,” Patterson said. As the West Palm Beach program director, Patterson, who has been with the West Palm Beach PAL for four years, usually mentors the group by herself, as is the case at the present, but occasionally is joined by a grant-funded assistant.

Ormond Beach PAL and New Smyrna Beach PAL Youth Directors Join Together in Regional Cemetery Beautification Project

In March 2004, youth directors from Ormond Beach PAL organized a clean-up for a small, local cemetery, and were joined in this effort by twelve youth directors from New Smyrna Beach PAL, and twelve young volunteers from Ormond Beach Prince of Peace’s 2004 Confirmation Class. This wasn’t the first time the youngsters from Ormond Beach had worked in the cemetery. In the spring of 2003, the Ormond Beach PAL youth directors had cleaned up the cemetery as a local community project. Recognizing the ongoing nature of upkeep, they decided to pull in more forces for another go at it.

The youth directors’s project plan explained how the cemetery came into being: “In the early 1960's, the City of Ormond Beach gave the African American Community a small section of land for use as a cemetery which was named the Oakridge Cemetery.” Over the years, due to city expansion, land around the cemetery was developed. A peripheral stand of trees and a strip mall separate the cemetery from a major highway. Unfortunately, the cemetery has been used as a site for clandestine drug use and the dumping of trash. Fallen tree limbs and moldy, mildewed gravestones added to the general appearance of neglect. A group of mostly elderly, volunteer caretakers were not able to cope with maintenance.

The cemetery clean-up was a really worthwhile project for the kids. With the help of adult volunteers, they put in a full morning’s work on March 20, 2004, and accomplished all their goals by one p.m. They mowed and weeded; picked up trash; removed overgrowth and fallen tree limbs; cleaned out two small areas to create a place for the installation of two benches; installed corner fencing to offer the cemetery a better presence; cleaned up headstones as permitted by families, and planted hardy, care-free fruit trees in a couple of areas.

“The other thing we did that was really nice,” Lisa Messersmith-Weaver, Ormond Beach PAL director, said, “was that we had florists in the community that donated flowers. At the end of the project, every youth placed flowers on all four hundred-eight grave sites. The kids really enjoyed putting the flowers down. A couple of the youth in Ormond Beach PAL had relatives that were there, so they made a special effort to put a flower on their relative’s site.”

Messersmith-Weaver said the clean-up project had to be finished by one p.m, as a new burial was scheduled then. “So the kids got out there, and they pushed it really hard,” she said. “They got everything done and it looked really nice for the family. This made the kids aware that even though this is an historic site, and there are members there who are from WWI, and are buried there as veterans, that the cemetery is still being used today.”

There were multiple benefits for the community because of this project, in addition to the more attractive appearance. Since the site had seen some drug activity, police patrols often check on it. In its newly cleaned state, the cemetery will be less attractive as a drug use site, and illegal acts will be easier for the patrolmen to spot.

Before coming to PAL as their new director in October 2003, Lisa Messersmith-Weaver served as community program coordinator for the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Of her PAL position, she said, “I really enjoy the opportunity to create positive alternatives for youth in the arts and through leadership recreational programs.” Messersmith-Weaver was one of three Florida women artists exhibiting works featuring assemblages, fabric and printmaking at the Deland Museum of Art in July and August 2004.

Dave Adkins has served as director of New Smyrna Beach PAL for three years, and reports that his YDC has some “very motivated kids. They pretty much do anything they can to get involved.” Very often their community service projects involve parking cars for community events.

With a grant from National PAL, Messersmith-Weaver said the Ormond Beach PAL YDC purchased puppets, created a story program, and in the summer of 2004, presented it to a local school group of young kids. The YDC enjoyed this project so much, they want to make it an annual event for area pre-schoolers.

“They want to show the younger kids the importance and value of reading,” Messersmith told us. The story the kids chose to dramatize was “an African tale about a spider. Some of the kids wore masks and some of them had the puppets. The children in the audience were just mesmerized. They thought it was just wonderful.”

Building on the effort to promote reading, the Ormond Beach YDC worked with the Ormond Beach Chamber of Commerce to create a reading room at the South Ormond Neighborhood Community Center. The YDC helped label, sort according to grade level and shelve more than five thousand children’s used books that were donated to the Chamber of Commerce. Amazingly, the entire job was accomplished in one day! The beauty of the program is that when a child chooses a book, the book is a gift, not returned, as with a regular library.

Channeling the energy of these youthful dynamos into positive, helpful community activities is no easy task, but that’s why the Police Athletic League’s Youth Directors’ program exists. Yeah, kids like to have fun, but they also love being useful contributors in their communities. What a difference they are making!

Dave Beaudry, executive director of Palm Bay PAL, has coined a phrase about Holiday Builders: “They’re not only building good homes, they’re building good communities.” They’re building good communities by investing in the Police Athletic League, whose chief aim is to provide programs and mentors which benefit kids, thus giving the community as a whole a boost.

In the fall of 2002, Holiday Builders announced a big investment in the Police Athletic League. They proposed to build five houses in different locations in the state with all proceeds to go to the Police Athletic League. “I was floored,” Dave Beaudry said when he heard of the plan. Two thirds of the proceeds from each house will go to the PAL in its area; the remaining one third will go to the State of Florida Association of Police Athletic/Activities Leagues (SFAPAL), which will funnel the funds into the state-wide PAL events. Holiday Builders estimates that this program will net approximately $200,000 for PAL.

The five homes are being built throughout Florida: Palm Bay (Brevard County), Port St. Lucie (St. Lucie County), Golden Gate (Collier County), Cape Coral (Lee County), and Deltona (Volusia County). Suppliers and subcontractors for Holiday Builders are responding by donating materials and services which will increase the funds PAL will receive in the final tally. Holiday Builders, owned by Richard Hawkes and based in Melbourne, Florida, has twenty-three locations in Florida and expects to build nearly twenty-three thousand homes by year’s end.

Richard Hawkes, president of Holiday Builders and a board member of Palm Bay PAL, said, “PAL has great programs that help steer kids in the right direction. Holiday and its trade partners are doing what we can to recognize the great work of the Police Athletic League and help grow the organization.”

Holiday Buiders has been a big supporter of Palm Bay PAL for about five years. When Palm Bay PAL wanted to renovate two store front spaces into a teen center, Holiday Builders were front and center with materials amounting to thousands of dollars so the kids could have a safe place to have fun. Holiday Builders responded to another need when Palm Bay PAL was developing its PAL park. Richard Hawkes and his subcontractors built a $50,000 pavillion in the park, at no cost to PAL. In addition, every Holiday Builder’s vehicle throughout the state--company cars to dump trucks--sports a Florida PAL license plate, which generates money for PAL.

Dave Beaudry says of Richard Hawkes, “This is the kind of guy who’s the president of a major home building organization and you will find him the day before Christmas standing out in front of the department store wrapping Christmas presents with us [Palm Bay PAL fund raiser]. It’s tough to find people like that. And he’s got a busy schedule. He’s always there to give us a helping hand. He’s just totally comitted to our organization.” Hawkes encourages his employees to participate in helping PAL also, and last year eight of them were wrapping presents alongside him.

Holiday Builders was chosen as National PAL’s Corporation of the Year for 2001 because of their generous support of Palm Bay PAL. This national recognition is especially significant when you consider that Holiday Builders joins the ranks of past recipients, industry giants such as United Postal Service and General Electric.

Richard Hawkes will serve as a founding member of the newly formed Corporate Board of Directors for the state PAL organization. The purpose of this new board will be to excite corporate interest in PAL and encourage other businesses to invest in PALs .

Holiday Builder’s support of PAL is a great example of what can happen when a business and an organization for kids become partners. “It’s like a marriage made in heaven,” Dave Beaudry said. Both partners believe and work toward the same goal; each donating specific talents and goods to achieve the same end: namely, to improve and enhance the lives of the children in the community. That’s what it’s all about, and Holiday Builders and PAL are working together to make it happen.

On February 19, 2003, in Cape Coral, Florida, television cameras were rolling, and newspaper reporters were on hand with pad and paper to record an important event. Stepping forward with key Police Athletic League colleagues, L.B. Scott, executive director of the State of Florida Association of Athletic/Activities Leagues (SFAPAL), accepted a $100,000 check on behalf of the state organization from Richard Hawkes, president of Holiday Builders.

“Hawkes is the best supporter we’ve ever had on the state level,” L.B. Scott told PAL ILLUSTRATED. “We’ve never had anyone come to the table quite like that. This is very, very special, and he’s a special person, too.”

Scott knew ahead of time that the press conference was arranged so that Hawkes could officially present him with the check. What Scott did not know was the amount of the check. “It was a total surprise,” Scott said.

Holiday Builders, owned by Richard Hawkes and based in Melbourne, Florida, has twenty-three locations throughout Florida and built nearly 23,000 homes in 2002. They received the National PAL Corporation of the Year Award in 2001 because of their generous support of Palm Bay PAL. In September 2002, Holiday Builders extended their support to include SFAPAL and specific individual PAL chapters when it committed to donating $200,000 from the sale of five houses.

The morning of the press conference, Scott was expecting a much lesser amount than what he received. He knew two of the five proposed houses had been sold. But Hawkes told him that Holiday Builders had made its commitment, and felt it was time to give SFAPAL a first installment on the $200,000. Hawkes is a firm believer in the PAL mission, and is happy to see that his money is going to help kids.

And what a check it was! “We’ve never had that happen before,” Scott said. In addition to expressing his gratitude to Hawkes, Scott spoke of his appreciation for Dave Beaudry, executive director of Palm Bay PAL for his part in introducing Hawkes to State PAL. Scott also acknowledged the generosity of Holiday Builders’ suppliers and subcontractors whose support boosted the amount Holiday Builders could designate for PAL.

“Two thirds of the Holiday Builders donation will go to the local PAL chapters where each of the five houses is located. The other one third will go to State PAL programs, and that will benefit all PAL chapters in the state,” Scott said.

“I would like to see more corporations in Florida do things of this sort. That way we won’t always have to struggle with the federal and state cut backs. A lot of our PAL programs are really suffering right now and this type of thing is really a tremendous help for us.”