Optimist clubs keep new high school graduates well fed

Project Graduation provides safe fun

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by PAUL LEIBE Mechanicsville Optimist Club member Dennis Reed, left, helps fellow member Bill Stone empty a basket of chicken nuggets at Project Graduation last Thursday night as Regina Sydnor, of the Chaptico Optimist Club, looks on. This was Reed’s 26th year volunteering at the event, and Stone’s first. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

They were busy feeding about 600 people – 300 hungry graduates and their guests – at Project Graduation, which has provided a safe alternative to drinking and driving for St. Mary’s County high school graduates for the past 26 years.

‘‘It’s a busy night, all night long,” said Dennis Reed, a member of the Mechanicsville club who has worked at every Project Graduation since its inception. ‘‘The kids eat all night.”

Project Graduation is funded by the St. Mary’s County state’s attorney’s office and run by a partnership including the Maryland State Police, St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office, Pax River NAS, Patuxent River Department of Defense Police, local rescue squads and Optimist Clubs.

The Optimist Clubs served hot dogs, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chicken nuggets, french fries, ice cream, soda, and lemonade to the graduates when they arrived at the drill hall around 10 p.m., and then served them breakfast at about 2 a.m. They cooked the food outside in a trailer, then sent it inside, where graduates and guests served themselves from a buffet line next to the volleyball court. The club members usually get home around 4 a.m., ‘‘dog tired,” said Reed.

On Thursday night, the drill hall’s bowling alley was full of graduates bowling, chatting with each other and eating. In the large gymnasium, they played volleyball and basketball, slid down an inflatable slide designed to look like a roller coaster, and tried to knock each other off pedestals with big padded barbells in an inflatable ring. A huge inflatable spaceship, which housed laser tag, had touched down in one corner of the gym.

The swimming pool was also open, and at midnight, graduates could take a bus to the base theater for a movie, complete with popcorn and sodas.

‘‘It’s one of the greatest programs that’s ever come down the road,” said Phil Bailey, member of the 7th District Optimist Club, who has worked at every Project Graduation since the program started. Bailey’s job is to make sure the Optimist Club trailers get to the parking lot, and to order the food. He said he ordered more than 40 cases of hamburgers, 22 cases of hot dogs, 15 cases of french fries, 20 big tubs of ice cream, and 60 cases of 2-liter sodas for this year’s event.

The food, along with all other expenses including rental of the drill hall, a DJ, and rental of the inflatables, is paid for by the state’s attorney’s office. The money comes from ‘‘donations made by people in the community to the state’s attorney’s office, sometimes as the result of minor issues,” said St. Mary’s Assistant State’s Attorney Joseph Stanalonis. That includes keeping traffic tickets from going to court. This year, about $45,000 was spent, Stanalonis said.

Stanalonis, Reed and Bailey all said that since Project Graduation started there has not been a single fatality on graduation night.

The graduates, guests and volunteers at the event all have to sign an agreement saying they will not use drugs or alcohol on the day of Project Graduation, and state police are at the event to enforce the policy. Reed said that about 15 or 20 years ago, an attendee sneaked a bottle in and got arrested. But that type of thing is rare, he said.

Reed said he volunteers at Project Graduation for the satisfaction of knowing the program keeps kids safe on graduation night. ‘‘By the time they get out of there, they’re too tired to get in any trouble,” he said.