California

Adopt-A-Block

More and more across our nation, neighborhoods are coming together in an effort to improve communication and create safer places to live. In the San Francisco Bay Area, one of these efforts is focusing on children through a program known as Adopt-A-Block.

Coordinated through a volunteer group known as Safe Kids Now, their goal is provide resources and information empowering people to reduce crime and violence. The mission is to form neighborhoods where children can develop in a safe environment.

Grassroots activist Stephanie Mann, who helped launch the national Neighborhood Watch movement, is the founder of Safe Kids Now. To help residents take the steps to form a working partnership, Ms. Mann developed the Adopt-A-Block Guidebook. Partially funded by State Farm, the guidebook outlines 10 steps to a safe and healthy neighborhood.

The 10 steps start with how to form an Adopt-A-Block team and covers how to communicate within the neighborhood, how to make a neighborhood unfriendly towards crime, and how to celebrate neighborhood successes and safety.

For more information about the Adopt-A-Block program, go to www.safekidsnow.com or safeneighborhoods@gmail.com to contact Stephanie Mann directly.