Texas Aggie july/august 2008 aggienetwork.com

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1 CARPOOL serves the Bryan-College Station area with free rides home from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. every Thursday, Friday and Saturday. From manning the phone lines to organizing passenger pickup, CARPOOL is run completely by students. 46 Texas Aggie july/august 2008 aggienetwork.com

2 Driving Force CARPOOL is a volunteer student organization that gives free rides to people who are intoxicated or otherwise not able to drive. After eight years at Texas A&M and more than 125,000 rides, CARPOOL has earned a national reputation as the safe-ride program that universities emulate when they want to see a positive change in their communities. By Stephanie Jeter 06 aggienetwork.com july/august 2008 Texas Aggie 47

3 The house is off the main road, but just follow the string of cars headed that way, offered Cait Jones 08. It was 9:30 p.m. on a Thursday, and while University Drive and Texas Avenue were packed, the road out to CARPOOL s Schmidt House offered plenty of blacktop and little traffic. As the road became more rural, the vehicles left traveling fell in line to turn at the traffic signal. Car blinkers can t keep a steady beat; the flashing line of red lights made the turning lane look like a losing game of Tetris. CARPOOL members leave their vehicles in the church parking lot across the street. It s dark. Every time a car pulls in, its headlights illuminate another CARPOOL member walking across, going toward the house with the lime green porch light. For more than eight years, Texas A&M students have offered free non-judgemental rides to anyone too intoxicated or otherwise unable to drive. The name is their charge: Caring Aggies R Protecting Over Our Lives. It s who they are. It s what they do, said Jones, the organization s chairperson. The Schmidt House is the center of operations. Every Thursday, Friday and Saturday out on a dinner run who brought back donated food. The house was active with doors opening and closing, and dinner eventually came in behind another member. The house smelled like pizza: pepperoni and cheese for the Aggies who give their nights to save lives. From a business standpoint, CARPOOL self-enforces strict rules. Every night before CARPOOL runs, volunteers get a refresher course in alcohol poisoning and other procedural what-ifs. It doesn t matter that every member already took safety courses before being handed the keys. There s always a chance to get better in CARPOOL. There s always room to improve, Jones said. And when it s time to roll and start the night, cars are dispatched promptly and calls for rides are answered politely. Car drivers and their navigators a male-female pairing are well outfitted with maps, a cell phone and GPS chip placed in the rental car for safety. The calls for rides are split up and organized into some 20 rental cars by a team of CARPOOL is known as the best university designated-driving program in the nation, but in its heart, the organization represents much more, Jones said, so much more. during the school year, about 40 of the 350 CARPOOL members meet at the two-bedroom brownstone owned by Texas A&M University before a night of designated driving. But, here, let me show you around, Jones said. Couches frame the Schmidt House living room. With almost everyone in place, it was such a full house that people sat on the floor. Posters and awards hung on the wall. The house has a doorbell, but no one ever uses it, not even the two members trained CARPOOL leaders and an Aggiecreated computer program. Yes, CARPOOL walks a hard line to achieve its mission of free, non-judgemental rides for all, but the members know it s not the orderliness that keeps the organization growing, Jones said. CARPOOL could never run on informational data and with the hours volunteers keep, the group definitely isn t fueled by sleep. It s hard to describe CARPOOL, members say. To explain it simply as a 48 Texas Aggie july/august 2008 aggienetwork.com

4 We re big on the family aspect, said CARPOOL founder Jeff Schiefelbein 00. Membership in CARPOOL is more than the monthly meeting and giving weekly free rides. It s special, he said. Somehow the focus of making sure you re having a good time while providing a great service where safety and acceptance come first binds people together. aggienetwork.com july/august 2008 Texas Aggie 49

5 volunteer program created by Aggies, run by Aggies and sustained by Aggies would be correct, but there would still be something missing. CARPOOL is known as the best university designated-driving program in the nation, but in its heart, the organization represents much more, Jones said, so much more. CARPOOL is bigger than you, she said. CARPOOL has one purpose, and that s to serve, said Ben Salinas 08, a CAR- POOL director. But inside that parameter, there is a connection and craziness that bonds all members to the same CARPOOL family. Members share their lives with each other. CARPOOL For students in Bryan-College Station in need of a safe, free, non-judgemental ride home, it s as simple as making a phone call (979) is a community. Members watch movies and go on trips together. They share meals and memories. They share stories. We talk about CARPOOL culture a lot, said Jessie Anderson 09, a CARPOOL chairperson. Folklore, they call it. Settle in CARPOOL s founder has a good one. CARPOOL was born out of a DWI in October I was pulled over at the Taco Cabana, said Jeff Schiefelbein 00. He didn t know it then, but the mistake would forever change Texas A&M. The power was in his hands the ones that were handcuffed together, immobilizing him as the police officer escorted him to the waiting cruiser. The ones that had previously nursed one too many beers at the bar, but connected the keys to the ignition all the same. The DWI charge took his license and sentenced him to 18-months probation, 60 hours of community service and required he attend a Mother s Against Drunk Driving victim impact panel. He did. At the panel, a woman talked about her daughter s death, a result of a drunk driver. The mom brought a photo, and the girl looked just like a friend I had in high school, Schiefelbein said. When his ride showed up at the courthouse, Schiefelbein opened the passenger door of the car he was no longer able to drive and told his friend, I m going to start the best designated-driver program in the country. He knew it was possible and that he could be the one to get it done. A very active student, Schiefelbein was in Fish Camp, Student Government and programs within Student Activities. I d already started other things at A&M, he said. I knew a lot of people. I had to do something. That was November I spent that Christmas break reading every document about student activities, he said. How do you start an organization and what resources are available to students? Would members drive their own cars or use rentals? What about car insurance, risk management and finances? He knew it was a great idea, but to get the support he needed, I wanted to prove that I was taking a real business approach to this and not just a social organization. He built a business plan. He made calls and went to meetings. For several months, he spent his life on CAR- POOL. All I did was work from the 50 Texas Aggie july/august 2008 aggienetwork.com

6 moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed. I was stressed. I d been told no a million times, but he knew the idea would work. By the time he opened CARPOOL for membership, it was summer break. I couldn t tell them what cars they were going to be driving or what insurance policies we were going to have. I couldn t tell them a lot, he said. I could just say that I had enough momentum, and that if they came back from summer and believed in the whole process, we d kick it off on Sept. 16 (1999). The strenuous work schedule continued all summer meeting with legal counsels, finding a place to house operations, acquiring vehicles. Even when resolved, there was always something else. The apartment CARPOOL obtained needed furniture, Internet access, food supplies and phone connections. A successful contract with Enterprise Rent-a-Car meant the vehicles needed fuel. Summer went fast. The very first week of school, we recorded public service announcements, hung fliers at every bar and started doing daily PR on campus, Schiefelbein said. He told his story a thousand times and he asked for support a thousand more. The following Thursday night, the group gathered for its first night of CARPOOL operation. We re sitting in the apartment, all watching the phone, Schiefelbein said, and finally, it rings. Though most of the time, CARPOOL moved so fast there wasn t time to stop and think about what was happening, that night, with that phone call, he took a breath. Howdy, CARPOOL, the phone operator said. The phone rang 35 more times that night for a grand total of 36 rides. It was unbelievable. But the night wasn t over. Schiefelbein had paperwork to do. With two hours of sleep, he did it all again the next day. On Saturday, CARPOOL planned a wrecked car demonstration at the football game. That s when Schiefelbein started feeling sick. My throat swelled up, then swelled shut. He couldn t drink or eat. I went to the ER three times. The long hours caught up with him. The hospital admitted him for a week. I don t remember most of it. He received flowers from the police department that arrested him two years earlier, a sign of success, he said. Administrators visited, and his parents came down. He met the president of the local chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving while he was groggy in the hospital. I wake up and this woman is pinning an angel on my gown. I looked at her and she gave me kiss. She said she d been looking for me everywhere on campus. She was told she could find me here. He couldn t speak, and he was still in the hospital the night CARPOOL hit its first 100-ride night, a staggering accomplishment. Somehow over the years, CARPOOL s unique non-judgemental stance toward being the designated driver made being responsible the cool thing to do. Universities have long attempted to create an effective safe driving program like CARPOOL, Texas A&M included, said Sgt. Allan Baron 00 with the University Police Department. He s been with the UPD for 20 years. Before CARPOOL, there d be vans or buses on Friday and Saturday nights, but they were run with very little thought put into the process, Baron said. Students wanting a ride home from drinking were loaded in multi-seat vehicles without attention to safety or risk management. But the biggest problem with the former designated-driver programs was they just weren t fun. Students won t call for a ride if it s not fun, Schiefelbein said. That s the secret, he said. CARPOOL isn t successful because it blankly offers college students the option to catch a free ride rather than drive intoxicated. It s successful because the students want to take it. College students are still drinking. We haven t done anything to change that, but CARPOOL instilled it in people that it s cool to make responsible choices, he said. Alcohol-related offenses are one of the major issues local police departments deal with, Baron said. It was probably the most unique program I had ever seen created. I have individuals call me from across the country inquiring about this program, he said. They want to know why it s so successful and what they can do to start a program like it. As Schiefelbein s story proves, the task wasn t easy. There are legal and organizational roadblocks that can stop the best university program before it ever gets started. That s why Texas A&M was the right school to be the pilot and to be the benchmark for how to get something like this off the ground, Schiefelbein said. Texas A&M has a spirit. It s contagious to be involved here. From the very beginning Schiefelbein said CARPOOL was developed to be shared. The manual CARPOOL created to keep drunk drivers off the roads can be picked and shared. We re just lucky to have started it with Aggies because they care so much, he said. Somehow over the years, CARPOOL s unique non-judgemental stance toward being the designated driver made being responsible the cool thing to do. In 2001, a CARPOOL member developed a conference to teach students how to create safe-ride programs at other universities. A new organization sprung out of the idea. Safe Ride Programs United continues to grow. So far, nine other universities follow the CARPOOL model at their schools. I don t know what path it will take next, but I do think that we could sit down in 15 years and this program will be in dozens and dozens of schools, Schiefelbein said. CARPOOL recently started an endowment program to help with funding. The interest built on $2.5 million should support CARPOOL through its yearly activities. And as Schiefelbein said, First Texas A&M, then we go nationwide. As student organizations go, CAR- POOL is a founding establishment, the first of its kind the start of a Selfless Service revolution. aggienetwork.com july/august 2008 Texas Aggie 51