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Teens Play it Safe in Record Numbers
 | | Teens enjoy an afternoon at Trimpers' |
Ocean City is a vacation hotspot for teens, especially high school seniors celebrating graduation with senior beach week. These 17- and 18-year-olds look forward to an unsupervised week of swimming, tanning and sometimes wild partying, which of course sounds great to high school students and highly worrisome to their parents, not to mention members of the Ocean City community who don't want to deal with empty beer bottles, loud partying late at night, and most importantly, the dangers associated with underage drinking and drug use. The dilemma was that while the idea of an unsupervised vacation is an exciting reward for kids who have just graduated from high school, the reality of it can be expensive, disruptive, or even tragic. Eighteen years ago, the city began a concentrated effort to solve this problem through a program called Play it Safe, intended to keep teens busy and entertained with alcohol-free, supervised activities. The program has grown every year, from 414 participating teens in 1991 to a whopping 13,148 this summer. In June and July the program sponsored 57 events, with the help of businesses throughout the region.
Of course practically all of Ocean City gets involved in the program to make summer fun and safe for teens, with over 200 businesses sponsoring events and donating services and departments from public works and transportation to the police helping out. As Al "Hondo" Handy of the Parks and Recreation Department put it, "It's really getting the word out; it's an overall town-sponsored event." However, a party this big takes more than one town to pull off. That's why the whole state participates through high school programs, and every high school in Maryland is mailed brochures about the program. After all, "senior beach week" is a statewide tradition. But it doesn't stop at the Maryland border, either - in fact, this year kids from 26 states and the District of Columbia took part in the festivities.
This year's events included everything from basketball and volleyball to competitive pancake eating, karaoke, concerts and dances. The Play it Safe committee's own Bev Townshend commented that the team sports like basketball "are always the big draws," but other events were surprisingly popular as well, like weekly kayak relay races, which drew some 400 kids. "The numbers have been zooming," Townshend reports. The program has also had success with special events like the annual Oceancity.com Sandcastle Contest, thanks to the participation of several local businesses and organizations, including the charity-minded Parrotheads, whom Townshend described as "very kind."
 | | Karaoke contest winners pose with their prize. |
Of course, not all kids will manage to get through the whole trip without some misbehavior. To protect even those teens who do drink alcohol, Play it Safe offers participants a wristband which allows them unlimited free use of the town's buses. In one case, the wristband saved the vacation of a group of kids whose hotel kicked them out for the night due to loud, late-night partying. The intoxicated kids simply got on the bus, where the driver drove them around town all night singing songs together and staying out of trouble.
The kids who participate in Play it Safe know that the organization helps them to have a fun and safe summer vacation. Unfortunately, it is hard to prove exactly how much of a difference it makes in minimizing teen drinking and accidents, since there are few cities in the region with comparable numbers of unaccompanied minors on vacation. This year, though, the town has put in an extra effort to monitor the progress of Play it Safe and quantify some of the program's results, in the hope of making it a "model program" to be applied in other resorts. Townshend was optimistic about this effort, which could help to reduce problems with teen vacationers on both coasts.
 | | The volleyball tournament is always popular. |
The participating teens and, of course, their parents are always grateful for the tremendous effort put in by Play it Safe volunteers and the participating services and departments. One father wrote to Play it Safe to thank them for watching out for his son, adding that "The incentives that encouraged proper and legal behavior had a great impact on him and his friends." After several years with the program, Townshend herself is still impressed with the influence that Play it Safe has on visiting teens: "We get the kids that want to do something, and keep them out of trouble. They kind of open up to volunteers, I guess knowing that they'll probably never see each other again." After a pause, she finishes the sentiment. "Plus, we give them pizza and free t-shirts."
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Sarah Fitch
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