Cast A YouTube Vote for Bateman Project
02/12/08
Author: Carolyn Crist, External Affairs Student Intern
Contact: Karen Russell, karenm@uga.edu


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Five Grady College students want their kids to win, but they need your help on YouTube.

Grady students competing in the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) National Bateman Case Study Competition have worked with sixth and seventh graders from Athens' W.R. Coile Middle School to create two videos focused on the importance of buckling their seat belts.

More than 50 students from each grade created the videos last week, and the sixth and seventh grade groups are competing to get the most views on YouTube and TeacherTube between Monday, Feb. 18 and Friday, Feb. 22.

The grade with the most views of its video will win the Virtual Video Showdown and will have a pizza party and special visit from a UGA athlete on Monday, Feb. 25. Visit youtube.com/group/safekidsathens to view both videos and register your video preference.

This year's Bateman team client is Chevrolet's Safe Kids Buckle Up, a vehicle safety program sponsored by Athens Chevrolet and Safe Kids Athens Area.

Grady College public relations students Ashley Beebe, Jarek Beem, Abby Blaylock, Audrey Califf and Sydney Carroll are team members for this year's Bateman competition.

They created and executed an entire vehicle safety public relations campaign targeted to tweens, ages 11 to 14, and their parents in conjunction with Safe Kids Athens Area and Athens Chevrolet this month. Coile Middle School students had to incorporate statistics related to seat belt safety and facts about the law into their videos.

Safe Kids Athens Area is a coalition member of Safe Kids Worldwide, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing accidental childhood injury. The coalition, led by a group of volunteers called the Safe Team, provides support to 17 counties in Northeast Georgia that correlate with the service area of Athens Regional Medical Center, the lead agency of the coalition.

Safe Kids Athens Area's mission is to promote changes in attitudes, behaviors, laws and the environment to prevent accidental injury to children and promotes vehicle safety through Chevrolet's Safe Kids Buckle Up program, as well as bicycle safety, pedestrian safety, water safety, fire and burn safety, and poison safety through other programs.

The 2008 Bateman team are hoping to repeat the success of the 2007 Bateman team, whose campaign for Family Caregiving 101 won top honors in the national competition.

The sixth and seventh grade videos are posted here: www.youtube.com/group/safekidsathens

For more information, visit the Bateman Team's web site at www.safekidsathens.org.

To read the Executive Summary; Safe Kids Buckle Up campaign.