PROGRAMS

     In the last fifteen years over 400,000 school children have been presented with the message that you can be good for 365 days out of the year, but if you make one bad decision on the 365th day, your life can be changed forever. Started by a Federal Corrections Officer fifteen years ago, and now under the auspices of the Peoria Park District’s Youth Outreach Division, brings its message of “thinking before doing” loud and clear to school all over Illinois, and now the U.S. The message is directed at timid 8th graders headed into the predatory jaws of high schools.
    

As they move from childhood to adulthood, students need to know that they will encounter individuals who will attempt to use their youthful inexperience against them.  Each year Carl Cannon and other correctional officers travel to area schools and deliver the C.H.O.I.C.E.S. message as a challenge to students. The faculty and administration are awestruck by how receptive the students are to the impact of the presentation. Those students that start to show that have the potential to really embody the true ideals of the program are chosen by their schools to receive the annual C.H.O.I.C.E.S. Youth Outreach Community Law Enforcement Incentive award presented by their local Police Chief in August of each year.
   

 This year’s ceremony will be on August 14th and will include a parade through download Peoria, an award ceremony on par with on given for a foreign dignitary, an expense paid shopping trip to Northwoods Mall and an overnight adventure for nearly 200 individuals. “Everything will be done first-class for these young people. The students will know that we feel they are the most important people in the world”, smiles Carl Cannon. The recipients this year will travel from the ceremony to a fully funded shopping spree at the local mall via a motorcade of first-class motor coaches and no less than 12 police cruisers with sirens blaring, “We will stop at no traffic signals; they will know what it is like to be important!” Cannon continues.
   

The ceremony and lock-in are no the culmination of the student’s involvement. Over the first semester of high school, once a week recipients will be expected to meet with tutors from area colleges, like Bradley University. They will discuss their studies, personal problems and be introduced to college-life by volunteer student mentors. In December, students who have lived up to their commitments and who have met with their mentors will come together again for a holiday party on their behalf. At this even students will be presented with a refurbished personal computer and other holiday goodies.

“Equipment” by Edgar A. Guest

Figure it out for yourself, my lad,
You’ve all that the greatest of men have had,
Two arms, two hands, two legs, two eyes;
And a brain to use if you would be wise,
With this equipment they all began.

So start for the top and say, “I can”,
Look them over the wise and great,
They take their food from a common plate,
And similar knives and forks they use,
With similar laces they tie their shoes,
The world considers them brave and smart,
But you’ve all they had when they made their start.

You can triumph and come to skill,
You can be great if you only will
You’re well equipped for what fight you choose,
You have arms and legs and a brain to use,
And the man who has risen great deeds to do
Began his life with no more than you.

You are the handicap you must face,
You are the one who must choose our place
You must say where you want to go,
How much you student the truth to know;
God has equipped you for life, but He
Lets you decide what you want to be.

Courage must come from the soul within
The man must furnish the will to win.
So figure it out for yourself, my lad
You were born with all that the great have had,
With your equipment they all began,
Get hold of yourself and say: “I can.”