New Castle joins Tier 3 of Project Ignition

Staff report

New castle

New Castle Junior/Senior High School was selected to participate in Tier 3 of Project Ignition, funded by State Farm and coordinated by the National Youth Leadership Council for the 2011-12 school year.

Their proposal is one of 12 selected throughout the U.S. and they have received another $1,000 grant to continue their teen-driver-safety campaign.

New Castle is being recognized as a “National Leader School” and has committed to mentoring other schools into Project Ignition and helping them create quality applications to join PI Nation.

New Castle has provided two schools with $1,000 minigrants so far to focus their own efforts on teen-driver safety.

Both schools have submitted applications for the State Farm Project Ignition competition and will be notified this month of their status.

The two schools are Lawrence County Career and Technical Center and Ambridge High School in Beaver County.

LCCTC World History teacher and Peer Leader Advisor Jeri Palumbo and Ambridge’s driver-education teacher Larry Knopsnyder accepted the checks along with their students.

Minigrants were made possible from the State Farm Youth Advisory Board grant money received earlier in the year by New Castle.

New Castle Jr./Sr. High School safety-education teacher Donna Campbell and six Project Ignition teacher members Michael Geramita, Gabby Matarazzo, Dannin McClenahan, Brooke Wesner, Corrin McKinney and Sierra Lyles attended a driver-safety conference at Ambridge High School last month.

Guest speakers included an accident re-constructionist from the Beaver County District Attorney’s office, Chris McCafferty, a school-based probation officer/DUI Instructor, and Maggie Zaliponi, a trauma flight nurse/police officer.

The conference was the senior project of Ambridge students Samantha Peters and Carley Kordas.

“Ambridge has been hosting this conference for several years and I am always impressed with the program,” Campbell said. “We look forward to working with both Ambridge and LCCTC on future projects.”