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Florida has specialty license tags for every thing you can think of—all good causes and worthwhile. To someone in the midst of making a decision on which to support, may we say, “What better choice could you make than investing in a child’s future?” That’s what the Police Athletic League (PAL) tag does: it directly funds beneficial programs for Florida’s youth.

We want good things for our children. We want them to be good citizens, do well in school, and have successful lives. We know that children need help and guidance to achieve these things. Through PAL, a non-profit, juvenile delinquency prevention organization, law enforcement officers and caring volunteers mentor and encourage children in character-building activities. PAL’s slogan is “Filling playgrounds, not prisons,” because PAL has always believed that preventing trouble is better than cleaning it up afterwards.

Why buy a PAL specialty license tag? The simple answer is because your support helps Florida’s youth. Proceeds from the tag sales fund the State of Florida Association of Police Athletic Leagues (SFAPAL) college scholarships and numerous PAL programs, which are designed to enrich children’s lives—programs that range from traditional sports, like boxing, basketball and football, to after-school programs, leadership training, and community service programs.

But don’t just take our word for it that PAL is worthwhile. Listen to eleventh-grader Tacoi Sumlar, a PAL kid from Florida City Police Athletic League in the Miami area, and also an adept, award-winning wide receiver for his Gulliver Preparatory School football team, as he talks about PAL on You Tube:

“When I started off,” Tacoi says on the thirty-second You Tube spot, “I thought PAL was about community service. I could get the community service [hours] I needed for school. Quickly, I learned it was more than that. PAL helped me to learn that you should be a leader, not a follower. It helped me on the football field, too. I was always good, but I didn’t have the voice to go along with it. Now I’ve stepped up to be a leader, and people look up to me.”

Tacoi joined the Police Athletic League when he was thirteen so he could earn community service hours, but when he attended his first PAL Youth Directors’ Conference in Orlando, his perspective on PAL changed.

“I learned so much from just one convention,” Tacoi had written in a letter to the PAL state office earlier this year. I learned that PAL was more than just a way to earn community service. It is a program to help kids of today and tomorrow.”

He saw all the programs that are anti-gun and anti-gang. He saw that PAL was helping kids stay off the streets and showing them that they could get along with police officers. He also began looking up to the PAL kids on the Youth Conference Committee (the YCC), the youth committee that plans and runs the SFAPAL’s annual youth conference.

Getting on that committee became his goal. Then it happened! “Being appointed to the YCC was probably the best thing that has happened to me in PAL,” he wrote, “because it has led to so many great things for me. Not only do I continue to learn more about the dangers of drugs and alcohol and gangs, but I’ve received professional speaking lessons from the best. The training for the YCC not only trains you for PAL, but it trains you for life.”

And listen to a dedicated PAL officer who is actively involved in working with PAL kids, Officer Jose Flores, Coral Gables Police Department, who speaks out for PAL on You Tube:

“When I tell people I’m an officer and working with PAL, they say, ‘Yeah, PAL’s that program that plays basketball and football.’ But I tell them it’s more than that,” he said on this thirty-second video that you can hear and see on You Tube. “We’re not just teaching sports—we’re teaching life. We’re teaching kids to become men and women in their community, productive citizens. That’s what’s important to us, so please help us help these kids by purchasing a PAL tag at your local tag agency.”

These video spots on You Tube are very effective tools for getting the word out about PAL and the PAL tag. Thank you Tacoi and Officer Flores!

The plan on July 23, 2009, was to set up a display table near the checkout lines inside a Publix in Lake Worth to talk to shoppers about the PAL specialty license tag. Eight Lake Worth Youth Directors joined Deputy Mike Mahoney, who is the president of the board of directors at Lake Worth PAL, behind the table for five hours on that day.

“The kids approached people with the little flyer about the tag, explaining what the tag was,” Deputy Mahoney said. The kids weren’t selling tags that day, but only hoping to get people interested enough to sign a form stating they would consider buying a PAL license tag.

“We got at least twenty-five or thirty [signed forms],” Deputy Mahoney said. A good day’s work!

More recently, September 26, 2009, Deputy Debbie Wilson helped the YDC kids campaign for the tag at a different location. Deputy Wilson serves as treasurer on the Lake Worth PAL board of directors and also as coordinator of the Youth Directors’ Program at Lake Worth PAL.

“It was the opening day event for our brand-new football field at Memorial Park in Lake Worth,” she said. “It was a good day to hold the tag promotion, to incorporate the tag drive along with the opening day for the field. They put up a stone dedicating the field to the PAL Warriors [Lake Worth PAL’s football team]. They had a ribbon-cutting, had the mayor, city commissioners, PAL football tackle team, the parents, citizens who came out to show support—everybody was there.”

Deputy Wilson and nine of the Youth Directors set their tag promotion table up in a pavilion adjacent to the food concession, a PAL fundraiser. “It was a perfect place,” Deputy Wilson said. “We had an overwhelming response. The one thing I did notice was the surprise to see how many citizens were not aware that this tag was available to them. When they found out, they were very supportive and they said this was a great thing. When they realized those monies were being used for youth programs, we got an overwhelming response of people signing up.”

“We’re very proud of our YDC kids,” Deputy Wilson said. “They do an excellent job. This [tag campaigning] is not the only thing they do. They do trash clean ups; they are mentors to an after-school program—they’re involved in numerous activities within our city to better our community. Whenever we ask them to do something or set something up, they are there 100% with support, not to mention they can’t wait to find out when the next event is going to be. We’ve got a great group of kids.”

Officer Wilson was very complimentary about Publix allowing them to use their store to campaign. “They are always more than willing to assist us. This isn’t the first time we’ve done a Publix tag drive. We have never been turned down from any organization. A couple of years in a row, we had a bank that was willing to help us set up to promote a tag drive. When it comes to kids’ programs, people will help you,” she said. Kids are a good investment! Good work, Lake Worth PAL!

Pictured are Florida PAL Youth Directors and their PAL Officers. Front row: Greg Berry, Ormond Beach PAL, Cassandra Cage-Jacksonville PAL, Liza Creatura-Satellite Beach PAL, and Kali Alexander- Ft. PiercePAL. Back row: Officer Dave Adkins- New Smyrna Beach PAL, Officer Jose Flores- Coral Gables PAL, and Officer Stephanie Patterson- West Palm Beach PAL.

This year, PAL maintained a display table to promote the PAL specialty license tag at the annual Florida Tax Collectors’ Association Conference. What better place to inform people about the tag than at a gathering of those who actually sell the tags? So, on September 13-16, 2009, at the Orlando Marriott Grande Lakes, amid all the vendors, the classes, seminars, meetings, and distinguished speakers at the conference, PAL was also present.

Mr. L. B. Scott, executive director of the State of Florida Association of Police Athletic/Activities Leagues (SFAPAL), had taken the big PAL tag display board and had everything set up to inform the tax collectors and their staff about the Police Athletic League specialty tag. He intended to be there for the entire conference, but because of illness in the family, he was called away. Fortunately, two stalwart SFAPAL Board of Directors’ officers came to the rescue: President Leslee Brimer and Past-president Commander Mel Williams. Ms. Brimer came directly over that Sunday evening, stayed through Monday at the table, when Commander Williams relieved her for the following day, Tuesday. She was back again on Wednesday and stayed until the end of the conference.

“We gave away T-shirts that said ‘The Florida PAL Tag,” and little trinkets, and talked to the tax collectors and also their staff that worked for them,” Ms. Brimer said. “So we promoted PAL. A lot of people were surprised and pleased. They didn’t really know what PAL was or what it worked toward. We came back with some positive input; Mr. Scott got some phone calls, and we collected cards, and so it was a good promotional week for PAL to get the name out there. I’ve encouraged Mr. Scott to do it again. I think this was the first time we’ve ever done it, and it’s something that we need to continue. I’ve always said, ‘We’re the best kept secret,’ and we need to change that.”

Thank you, Ms. Brimer and Commander Williams, for stepping into the void at the last minute. They saved the day! They both set aside their own agendas to be available to represent PAL.

Some good news from Commander Mel Williams: He announced mid-October that he is retiring from the Titusville Police Department to serve at Bethune Cookman University as chief of their police department. SFAPAL will not lose Commander Williams, as he will continue to serve as past-president of the SFAPAL Board of Directors. We wish him success as his career takes this new, exciting turn.

Leslee Brimer, SFAPAL board of directors’ president, and Mr. L. B. Scott, SFAPAL executive director, represented and promoted PAL in Tallahassee in meetings with the Department of Juvenile Justice and with the State Attorney’s Office. “Hopefully, we will get some funding,” Ms. Brimer said.

SFAPAL stresses the importance of the PAL specialty license tag, as it is the main funding tool for the organization’s programs for the children. But PAL needs funding from other sources as well. “It was encouraging,” Ms. Brimer said. “They are willing to talk. I know Mr. Scott is going to follow up with some other meetings in Tallahassee to try and get our name out there. We need to work as a whole for all the PALs, not just State PAL, because we know that all the PALs are hurting.”

Your PAL specialty license tag speaks volumes about your support for the youth of Florida. Even parked, your tag says you are concerned about our children’s future and are doing something positive to help. Buying a PAL license tag makes you a partner with PAL to ensure that our state’s youth reach their full potential.

From February 24 to February 27^th, 2009, about forty young people from Police Athletic Leagues [PALs] across the country came to Washington, D.C. to talk about how an effective youth leadership program should function. They came from PALs in California, Florida, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio and Texas. National PAL had received a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to develop a national youth leadership program, and the kids’ input was important in accomplishing this.

“My goal, and what I had written into the grant, was to get the kids involved in the development of the [National PAL Youth Leadership Program],” said Mike Dillhyon, executive director of National PAL. “The whole idea was for it to be by the kids, for the kids. That’s always been kind of our motto, even in our local chapters, and when Florida [PAL] developed its youth leadership program.”

When the PAL teens arrived in D.C., it was time to get to work. “They [the PAL kids] brainstormed and brought together some framework for us to put together our national program,” Mr. Dillhyon said. “It was an excellent opportunity for kids from different parts of the country to work together. As usual, putting the kids at the forefront showed why they are so successful.”

Seven young people from Florida Police Athletic Leagues made the trip. They were Alexandra Parrish, from Winter Haven PAL; Susie Bublitz, from Satellite Beach PAL; Denisha Merriweather, from Jacksonville PAL; Greg Berry, from Ormond Beach PAL; Stephon Morales, from Coral Gables PAL; Tacoi Sumler, from Florida City, and James McKinnon, from Jacksonville PAL. All are members of their local PAL chapters’ Youth Directors’ Councils (YDC).

“It was an outstanding event for the kids,” said Mr. L.B. Scott, executive director of the State of Florida Association of Police Athletic/Activities Leagues [SFAPAL]. “It gave them a chance to share their experiences with kids from other parts of the country.

“We, in Florida, have been doing YDC (Youth Directors’ Council) longer than anyone else,” Mr. Scott continued. “We’re almost into our twelfth year now of running this program. So our kids know a lot more about what the YLP (Youth Leadership Program) should be.”

During the talking and planning sessions of the meetings in D.C., the Florida PAL youth played a prominent role. “They kind of took charge and shared their knowledge with the other kids who haven’t had the same experiences,” Mr. Scott said.

“I was just proud of the way [the Florida PAL kids] conducted themselves. I was excited, to be honest with you. Their conduct on the trip was the best, the absolute best out of any kids I’ve ever taken on a trip anywhere in all these thirty-three years [in PAL]. They really represented the State of Florida extremely well.”

On the opening night of the meetings, the Florida PAL kids all wore matching warm-up suits with their names on them. As they walked into the room, “there was a hush—Florida PAL had arrived,” Ms. Rhonda Scott, SFAPAL program director, said.

Ms. Scott said the way the Florida kids conducted themselves at this national meeting was “phenomenal.” They offered outstanding leadership and “bold suggestions.” Ms. Scott reported that the Florida PAL kids told the others that “they need to step it up and add more demanding community service projects. [The Florida] kids wanted more service hours for the national model. I was just so proud of them.

“[Our kids] were the epitome of what the Youth Leadership Program is supposed to be about. One of our goals is to teach the kids how to effectively act in their community, how to effect change. They did that [in Washington]. We teach them to speak—they spoke. We improve their writing skills—they did that. Here they are setting up by-laws and writing mission statements. You could tell their experience was the major factor.”

The kids came up with some good ideas in the meetings. “They put them on flip-charts and then transferred them to paper to give to National PAL to explain what they wanted the national model [for the leadership program] to look like,” Ms. Scott said. “National PAL said they are going to follow the Florida model for the programming.”

The trip to Washington not only gave the kids a chance to shape the new National PAL program, but it also afforded them the opportunity to visit Capitol Hill. “They really enjoyed the experience of being in Washington, visiting with some of the legislators and talking with some of their office staffs,” Mr. Scott said. “The folks up there were very good to us. Corrine Brown’s office set up a guided tour of the capitol building for us.”

“The kids loved the capitol tour,” Ms. Scott added. “We almost saw Nancy Pelosi, but she just went by so fast. The thing the kids enjoyed best about the capitol trip itself was going to the Rayburn Building and eating in the cafeteria,” Ms. Scott said. “There we were, eating in the cafeteria with legislators and congressmen and the people who work for them. Of course, they had the best spread the kids had ever seen, even rivaling Disneyworld. They thoroughly enjoyed that.

“We went to Congressman John Mica’s office where his office manager, Tanice Tait, let the kids ask myriads of questions, and she was funny.

She gave each of the kids a miniature copy of the U.S. Constitution. She was so nice to the kids, and they really responded well to her,” Ms. Scott said. Ms. Tait was a teacher until just a few years ago, but then she made a move to Washington and quickly rose through the ranks. Her story of how she got her position in the congressman’s office made a big impression on one of the Florida boys, Greg Berry. “Miss Rhonda,” Greg told Ms. Scott later, “I would love to come back up here and work in Washington and do like Ms. Tait said she did, but I’m going to go to school first.”

Because of Mr. Scott’s numerous trips to Capitol Hill to promote PAL programs, he is familiar with many of the people there. “People were being nice, and they knew him, so that was great,” Ms. Scott said.

“The kids were so proud to walk behind him. They looked so sharp. They were all dressed up. So many people responded to them in the capitol building, the kids mentioned it: ‘They are actually talking to us,’ they told Mr. Scott. He said, ‘That’s because you are dressed professionally. I am so proud of you guys.’ ”

On two nights, the Florida PAL kids went ice-skating at “the biggest mall they’d ever seen,” Ms. Scott said. Stephon Morales, from Coral Gables near Miami, impressed everyone with his competent moves on the ice: “He was whipping by everybody,” Ms. Scott said.

When the Florida PAL kids toured the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum, they spotted Sean Paul, a well known reggae and light rap performer. “He posed with them for pictures and was so very nice to them,” Ms. Scott said. “The kids didn’t stop talking about it all the way back.”

Greg Berry, one of the boys on the trip, was SFAPAL’s Boy of the Year in 2008, and is now National PAL’s Boy of the Year. Ms. Scott first noticed Greg as a tiny basketball player with Ormond Beach PAL’s 10 and under team. “He was so cute, so tiny,” she said. “When he’d come to registration, he’d make everybody laugh.” He was very respectful, and Ms. Scott remembered him from year to year. She continually urged him to join the Youth Directors’ Council program, but he always had reasons why he couldn’t. He just wanted to play ball and be in the band. Finally, when he did join, “He was so shy and didn’t want to speak,’ ” Ms. Scott remembered. “The first year he would give me this look, like ‘ please don’t call on me.’ [Now eighteen-years-old,] he’s come from being one of the kids who’d cringe if you called on him, to being the first person to get up to speak.”

Greg thanks himself now for joining the Florida PAL Youth Directors’ Program. “Florida YDP is like a second family to me,” he said. “My exposure to Florida YDP started at an early age, which was a key part to why I am the leader I am today. Honestly, if I hadn’t joined Florida PAL, and later the YDP, my life would have been the total opposite of what it is at this very moment. It is a blessing to have the Florida PAL staff, directors, and coordinators who are a part of this program. They are there at every moment for any type of assistance you need.”

Greg wrote, “At a young age, PAL taught me the importance of education and hard work, helped me develop a strong, positive attitude toward law enforcement, and instituted athletic activities and social activities (park clean-ups, arts and crafts) to protect me and the rest of the community from the negative influences of crime, drugs and alcohol, and gang violence.” PAL has challenged him and provided him with tools that he’s needed to rise to their high expectations.

Susie Bublitz, from Satellite Beach PAL, wrote, “PAL has “truly changed my life and made me the person I am today. All of my PAL directors have affected me in some way. [They] have stood by me, given me confidence so that now I can give it to myself, [and] taught me how to speak in front of people so I can make my voice heard. I feel that one of the major reasons why PAL has affected my life so much is because of my directors. They have taught me many different things that I will take with me the rest of my life.”

Susi’s mother told her, “You know what? Officer Paul is your mentor. He will be that man that when you look back on your high school years, you will remember how he kept you out of trouble and made you be the person you’ll become.”

Susie wrote that today she can lead a meeting with complete confidence. “Speaking in front of people used to be a big challenge for me. I would shake and get so nervous that I would not even want to perform. Through this program [YDC], I have learned that making your voice heard is one the most important things you can do. When speaking up, you have the power to fix something that you feel needs fixing, or help a person in need.”

Tacoi Sumler is a sixteen-year-old tenth grader living in Florida City, Florida. He joined the Police Athletic League when he was about thirteen just so he could earn the needed community service hours for his school. And that was what PAL meant to him at that time. When he attended his first Youth Directors’ Conference in Orlando, everything about PAL changed for him.

“I learned so much from just one convention,” Tacoi wrote. “I learned that PAL was more than just a way to earn community service. It is a program to help kids of today and tomorrow.” He saw all the programs that are anti-gang and anti-drug. He saw that PAL was helping kids stay off the streets and showing them they could get along with police officers. He also began looking up to the PAL kids on the Youth Conference Committee (YCC), the youth committee that plans and runs SFAPAL’s annual conference, and wanting to be up there with them some day. That became his goal! With a lot of hard work, he reached his goal.

“Being appointed to the YCC was probably the best thing that has happened to me in PAL,” Tacoi wrote, “because it has led to so many great things for me. Not only do I continue to learn about the dangers of drugs and alcohol and gangs, but I’ve received professional speaking lessons from the best. The training for the YCC not only trains you for PAL, but it trains you for life.”

PAL is not all about work though. Tacoi wrote about the great times he’s had at Disney World and staying at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge for the planning sessions for the YDC conference. “Finally,” he wrote, “the most recent trip I took with PAL was to Washington, D.C. This was one of the greatest experiences of my life. I was in Washington with friends I already knew and I was getting to know other members from across the country. I discussed and argued with my fellow members as if we ran the entire PAL. We went to one of the biggest malls I’ve ever seen and we went ice skating in forty degree weather, what a rush! The most important thing we did though was taking a trip to Capitol Hill. We visited some of our legislative members’ offices and got to eat in the same room as they do. After that, we continued on to the Capitol Building and took a tour. . . The whole trip was unforgettable.”

Stephon Morales, eighteen and from Coral Gables PAL, is the SFAPAL Boy of the Year for 2009. A lot has changed since that day in 2006 when He went into his first PAL Youth Directors’ Conference thinking, “All right, a free trip to Orlando, sit through some classes, no big deal, it should be nice.” As the classes started, he realized, “This is better than I thought.” He could relate to many of the topics that were important to a teenager. He wrote, “PAL has taught that life can be easy if you make the right choices and follow the rules, but the hard part is being able to make, or have the ability to make, the right choices with peer pressure around you all the time. It’s not always simple being able to tell a friend, ‘Nah, that’s not such a good idea. But PAL was giving to everyone the tools needed to be able to turn someone down or reject them without turning it into a fight or argument.”

Stephon has found that community service “touches his heart” and gives him an “unexplainable feeling” of being able to make a difference. The YDC has taught him “how to care for others and place others before [himself].” He sees a life of service to others as richly satisfying.

Rhonda Scott thought it was wonderful for “National PAL to have afforded them this trip.” The Florida kids were “shining examples of the best we have—a class act all the way. They were fantastic, and they had so much fun.”

“The Florida PAL kids were “very comfortable with each other,” Ms. Scott said. “They protected each other. It was all for one, and one for all. It was not forced. Everything they did, they wanted to do together.” In other years, some previous PAL groups have not bonded as well, so it was refreshing to see this group coalesce.

At the end of the trip, Stephon Morales and Tacoi Sumler, two of the Florida PAL boys, came to Mr. Scott and told him how much they had enjoyed everything, and they were sad that they had not joined the PAL Youth Directors’ Council program earlier, especially Stephon, who at age eighteen, is in his last year of eligibility. Ms. Scott described it as a “teary-eyed” moment. “I told them, ‘You’re always family. Once you’re a PAL kid, you’re always a PAL kid.” And that’s true: Many of the PAL alumni keep in touch, and return to take part in PAL events.

“It really made me understand how important the training that we give to the kids is to them,” Mr. Scott said. “All of these kids have done a tremendous job in running our YDC. They’ve done everything we’ve asked them to do, and more.” They were key assets in the deliberations and planning sessions for the National PAL trip and shining examples of all that the PAL Youth Leadership Program can do.