On a Sunday morning in February 2013, Damian Kevitt went out on a routine bike ride. A driver struck him and never stopped – dragging him nearly a quarter mile under the car from the streets onto and down the 5 Freeway. Fortunately (and almost unbelievably), he survived. In the process, he lost his right leg and gained a new mission: to use what had happened to him to do good for others and for his beloved city of LA.
After four months in the hospital and countless intensive physical therapy sessions, Damian decided to finish the ride he started that Saturday morning. With friends, family, complete strangers, the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition (LACBC) and local government officials, Damian kicked off the first “Finish the Ride” event in April of 2014. The media covered this ride, spreading the message of traffic safety and the dire need to handle hit and run crimes. In that year, the hit and run crime rate dropped a staggering 16 percent, in no small part due to Finish the Ride.
Inspired by this success, Damian endeavored to do even more to prevent future traumatic traffic collisions through education and outreach. He founded Streets Are For Everyone (SAFE), a non-profit organization created to raise awareness about traffic safety and assist victims of traumatic traffic collisions.
Streets, Art, SAFE is a program put forth by SAFE to help high school students expand their knowledge of traffic safety while gaining valuable experience in the arts by creating Public Service Announcements (PSAs). As participants in this program, your students will produce a 27-second PSA from start to finish. They will be responsible for coming up with a concept, storyboarding it, writing a script, filming their PSA, editing it and presenting it to a panel of esteemed film industry experts for judging. Throughout this process, students will have several opportunities to receive feedback and mentoring from these experts. The school of the Grand Prize Winning students will receive a monetary grant to support the institution’s art programs. In addition, the top PSAs will be aired on local or national television.