Skate the Lake Expands to Winter Festival

The Skate the Lake fundraiser for Drive Smart Evergreen/Conifer has been reborn and expanded into the Winter Festival/Skate the Lake New Year’s Eve 2007 celebration. What’s sure to add to spectator entertainment value is the noon New Year’s Day First Annual Polar Plunge – a chance to jump into the icy waters to prove one’s manhood or womanhood and raise money for two good causes (see sidebar).

Drive Smart has promoted “safe and courteous” driving in the mountain area through a number of public service and educational offerings since 1993. In 1996, the organization came up with the brilliant idea of enacting their philosophy by initiating the first Skate the Lake New Year’s Eve event. The non-alcoholic, family-oriented party on the ice of Evergreen Lake was an instant success and quickly became a tradition. It was a sell-out fundraiser for years… until the warm weather and poor ice conditions
of New Year’s Eve 2006 took over and the event had to be cancelled for the first time.

The Winter Festival has all the fun of Skate the Lake and a whole lot more, according to Tom Carby, President of the Drive Smart Board of Directors and a sponsor through the Carby Insurance Agency. “The changes are going to be fabulous,” he exclaimed. “We’re expanding the event to provide more fun for families and non-skaters and to allow us to have an event no matter what the weather brings us.” This is the first step toward having a first-class Winter Festival in this area, he added. In terms of why he sponsors Skate the Lake, Carby replied, “Drive Smart really opened the eyes of many parents about car seats and improved the driving ability of many teens in the area. It has made a tremendous difference, especially with the alcohol-free New Year’s Eve party geared to everyone.”

About one-third of Skate the Lake participants come from out of the area, said Carby, with one family from New Mexico that had heard about it and were planning to drive to the event before it was cancelled last year. Tickets to the Winter Festival – Skate the Lake are nonrefundable and can now be purchased online anytime and the day after Thanksgiving in the following local businesses: Paragon Sports, Design Repeats, Buster’s Natural Pet Supply (Conifer), and Evergreen and Buchanan Park Rec Centers. Children 8 and under are free; all others are $15. An extra 500 tickets will be sold this year because the Winter Festival on “dry land” allows for more participants, bringing the new cap on numbers to 3,000.

“Drive Smart is critical to the safety of Evergreen’s community because they provide the service of car seat safety checks and scholarships for teens to take driver safety courses,” Einar Jensen, Community Education for Evergreen Fire/Rescue replied when asked what kind of difference Drive Smart has made in the mountain community. “How to strap children into seats in the proper way is something Evergreen Fire/Rescue cannot provide. It’s great that someone has stepped up to provide that service. Every time they send one teenaged student to the Alive at 25 program, that’s one more safe driver on the road. Each life is precious.” Though he says good prevention is hard to evaluate, no prevention is easy to see. “We have a good idea that without Drive Smart programs we’d have a lot more crashes up here.”

Drive Smart Evergreen/Conifer provides educational programs and driver safety clubs in Evergreen and Conifer High Schools with speakers and demonstrations aimed at preparing young drivers for mountain driving. The organization provided 17 scholarships to area youth in 2007 for driver’s education courses. They also educate preschool and young elementary age children through the Buckle Bear program in schools, encouraging them to stay in their 5-point harnesses and car seats in the car. The kids are weighed, and packages sent home with each outlining seat belt laws but encouraging parents to follow “best practices”, which can be a bit safer. The car seat safety checkpoint program for educating parents is another important program. Drive Smart also partners with other local organizations. They provided parking and traffic management support for Team Evergreen’s Triple Bypass bicycle ride last summer, with volunteers rising and being on the job directing traffic by 4:30 a.m.

The Winter Festival will have the same Skate the Lake party out on the ice with the Lakehouse parking lot transformed into a carnival with games, jumping castles – one for the little ones and one for older teenage-types, two side-by-side 22-foot high blow up slides, a dance area with its own tent and deejay, Christmas lights strung around the perimeter, marshmallow roasting pits on dry land as well as on the ice and food and drink vendors. Sleigh rides, fireworks at 8 p.m. and midnight, skating, ice hockey and games on the ice are all still part of the event.

Title sponsor for the past two years, The Mortgage Center owner Bill Kidwell, is back again this year in the title position. “At the end of the day, it’s important to keep local events local with local sponsors. Drive Smart and Skate the Lake really get families out “familying” together. They have core programs about safety and they sponsor this nonalcoholic event on New Year’s Eve where people classically lose control because they imbibe. We sponsor because we want to show our respect to people who care about families and life.”

New sponsor Sid Friedman owns Camp Tanuga, a kids’ traditional summer camp in Michigan. He and his wife recently had their first child and were referred to Drive Smart by several people in the community. “We had never heard of anything like this back in Michigan,” he commented. Drive Smart showed them the proper way to strap their new baby into his car seat and gave them guidelines for proper safety restraint as their son grew. “They told us about the connection with all the schools, especially when the kids get to be driving age. Having a camp for 7 to 14 year olds, I know how hard it is to connect with kids that age. I thought sponsoring a nonalcoholic event that supports driving awareness for high school kids was a good match for us.”

Neither rain, shine, snow, sleet nor 60 degree weather will stop the Skate the Lake Winter Festival in 2007. The party will go on with a lot of new fun added this year. Sponsorships and volunteer opportunities are still available and both afford many benefits. Call Drive Smart Evergreen/Conifer at 303-674-9683 or www.drivesmarte-c.org for more information

Take the Polar Plunge – If You Dare
At high noon on New Years Day at Evergreen Lake, snow or shine, you too can jump into the cool waters for a Polar Plunge! You’d be joining several local personalities, some more notorious than others, in their New Year’s Day bath in the icy Rocky Mountain waters. This event is a partnership with Drive Smart Evergreen/Conifer, Evergreen Fire/Rescue, Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, and Evergreen Park and Rec District. This is event is a fund raiser for Drive Smart Evergreen/Conifer and the Evergreen Parks and Recreation District Special Needs Program. Tickets are $25 per person. Anyone under 18 will need written parental permission (waiver). Visit www.evergreenpolarplunge.com as of November 15th for more info.

A 10-foot by 10-foot area, six feet deep, will be cut out of the ice and equipped with platforms and ladders. Jeffco Sherrif’s Department’s Lt. Ron Leonard will supervise. People will be able to jump in 'heats' (no pun intended). What do you get for $25 you might ask? Well, you get bragging rights (priceless) and a commemorative event shirt. In addition, Caffe De Lucca is offering hot chocolate for everyone who comes in with their event shirt that day. Jeffco Sheriff School Resource Officers (SROs) are challenging each other to jump in to raise $4,000 in donations/pledges. Deputy Dee Patterson and Evergreen High’s Tammy Dufford are taking the plunge and encouraging teachers and students to jump in, too. Kids from the school that raise the most money get the distinct privilege of pushing their fully-uniformed SRO in the Lake!

If you don't want to take a dip with the rest of them, you can pay to watch those wild, wooly characters jump in! Evergreen Park and Rec Executive Director Dick Wulf has “always seen this event in the back of his mind and is retiring just after the 1st of the year,” explains Drive Smart executive director Jackie Mauer. She encourages everyone to “See if you can get him to jump in a Speedo!... Stranger things have happened, right?” Other Evergreenites already signed up or thinking hard on it include Tom Hushens, Tom Carby and Dr. Paul Regan. Contact the Drive Smart Evergreen/Conifer office at 303-674-9683 or check the site for the plunge: www.evergreenpolarplunge.com