Please Support Track Watch

Diane Downend, diane@edenbridgehomes.com

There has been reported another contemplated suicide at the tracks by a Palo Alto teenager. A network of support, including police, the paid patrols, and volunteers at the Charleston crossing all worked together to help prevent another possible tragedy. And this wasn’t the only brush with death last week: Earlier in the week, the mom of a boy came to the patrol guard and asked him to keep a sharp lookout because that boy had threatened to come to the tracks to kill himself. She hoped the guard would save her son, if he made it to that point.

We MUST continue to staff the tracks, but we need your help to maintain the efforts. Here’s what is needed:

PLEASE donate to Trackwatch. You can either mail a check to the Palo Alto Police Department, c/o Barbara Teixeira, 275 Forest Avenue, Palo Alto, California 94301, or go online to donate at http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/depts/csd/community_and_family_resources/safetynet/p4.asp. Please support this important effort to cool our local “suicide hot spot.”

Any gift is welcome, but the more you can do, the better. More than $36,000 of the about $90,000 needed for the school year has been raised thus far, but only 36 individuals have given. We had a generous donation from a local foundation, but we need more help. Gifts of $100 or more are especially helpful, but any amount helps. The city attorney has advised us that all donations to this fund are tax-deductible, since the City is a Qualified Organization according to IRS Publication 526, p. 3, para. 5, ex. 1. http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p526.pdf.

Please also help watch the tracks, and ask your friends to do so too. We have only about a dozen volunteers taking shifts right now. If all our high school parents would take only one hour, we’d be staffed for the rest of the school year, at both Charleston and Churchill. To sign up, email Caroline at hopepaloalto@gmail.com. When you write to Caroline mention that you are a parent.

Here’s some supporting research about why watching the tracks is so important: http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=18157

The Track Watch effort lies in the context of the much broader efforts that the city and schools are working together to achieve (please see http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/depts/csd/community_and_family_resources/safetynet/default.asp for more information).

Many thanks to Kathy Schroeder and Anat Admati for their help raising funds and awareness. Countless thanks to Marielena Gaona for her many, many hours at the tracks. To Caroline Cahmy for your organizing efforts and many hours at the tracks, thank you.

For any questions about the trackwatch expenditures, please contact Palo Alto Police Officer Ken Dueker, Kenneth.Dueker@CityofPaloAlto.org, or 650-617-3100 x1281.

THANK YOU FOR HELPING PREVENT MORE TRAGEDY FOR PALO ALTO’S YOUNG PEOPLE.