Tacoma Police Department’s collaboration-savvy police officer. Spanaway’s drug clean-up specialist. Tacoma’s student with connections. East Pierce County’s crime-fighting communicators. And Lakewood’s drill sergeant turned cookie maker. These 2005 Safe Streets Superstars uniquely demonstrate the organization’s mission—to empower people to create safe neighborhoods—through their steadfast commitment to community service.

The Safe Streets Campaign will honor these and other community volunteers at its annual luncheon Wednesday, Oct. 19, noon to 1:30 p.m. at the Tacoma Sheraton: Mike Ake, Tacoma Police Department/Safe Streets Weed & Seed; Kathy Hernandez, Spanaway’s Arborcrest Apartments; Nan Nop, Youth Leading Change Graduate; Lou and Mary Sorg, Prairie Ridge Community; Carilyn Stock, Lakewood’s Old Country Buffet.

“Superstars take responsibility to create safer communities,” said Priscilla Lisicich, executive director of the Safe Streets Campaign. “Organizing their neighborhoods can start with a simple mission to get cars to slow down on a neighborhood street, for example. Then their work blossoms into neighborhood patrols that help to protect children going to and from school, closing down meth labs, driving drug dealers out of the neighborhood, restoring a park and so many other activities that make their community safer for all to enjoy,” she said.

At the luncheon, Safe Streets board members will ask the business and community leaders to continue to financially support the organization’s efforts to organize neighborhood block groups, provide leadership opportunities to youth and promote initiatives to eradicate the use and manufacture methamphetamines.

Key note speaker Curt McPhail, a board member of the Institute for Community Peace (ICP), an organization that promotes citizen empowerment, will discuss the value of the Safe Streets Pierce County model in violence prevention work across the country.

The suggested donation to attend the luncheon is $100. To register, contact Rienda Khlom at Safe Streets, (253) 272-6824 or email rkhlom@safest.org.
Safe Streets is the first private, non-profit organization that unites neighbors against crime—a model for other programs nationwide. Serving Tacoma and Pierce County since 1989, Safe Streets equal a safe community. Both private and public dollars support Safe Street’s community efforts. Learn more at http://www.safestreetscampaign.org.