{"id":42792,"date":"2019-05-10T23:23:25","date_gmt":"2019-05-11T03:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=42792"},"modified":"2019-05-10T23:23:35","modified_gmt":"2019-05-11T03:23:35","slug":"benches-for-our-babes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2019\/05\/benches-for-our-babes\/","title":{"rendered":"Benches for our Babes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Benches for our Babes is a community-based organization in Lee County Florida to advocate for children by providing a safe place for them to wait in the morning while waiting for their bus.\u00a0 The organization started as a grassroots community effort that has grown into something much larger than a few individuals and has sparked a movement in the hearts of our community.\u00a0 Their mission is to aid in the purchasing and placement of benches, picnic tables and other safety equipment using funds donated by members of the community.\u00a0 They are unpaid volunteers in the community who want to make a difference for future generations in SWFL.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Our movement was started by a few separate individuals.  First Daniel Webb, after hearing what\nhappened to Layla Aiken at her bus stop in Cape Coral, as a father, he felt\nsomething needed to be done.  He had just\npurchased a picnic table for himself and went to Lowe\u2019s to buy another for\nplacement at a local bus stop, this was the creation of the #parkbenchchallenge\nvideo.  He was then approached by Erin\nDiaz and Traci DeBusman of Cape Coral. \nThese two ladies had already created the Facebook Group, Benches for our\nBabes ~ A Cape Coral Group Focused on Children\u2019s Safety.  They joined forces.  As table donations began to flow, more people\njoined the movement.  North Fort Myers\nand Lehigh Acres joined, followed shortly thereafter by Pine Island.  Dan knew a contact at Lowe\u2019s, where he got their\nfirst discount.  Then Lowe\u2019s decided to\ndonate 100 tables.  Our movement has had\n4 large bench build events up at the NFM Airfield in a hangar that provides the\nperfect place for members of the community to band together and become an\nunstoppable voice and movement in the community.  Our city liaisons and admins are diligently\nattending school board meetings, city council meetings and working with media\nacross the county to keep this issue alive. \nCountless volunteer hours have been poured into the project while the\ncounty and city create their own plans to make the stops a safer place for\nkids.  Rotary and Kiwanis Clubs have also\nset forth a plan with the City of Cape Coral as part of a pilot program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now let\u2019s jump to Lehigh. \nWhen the Cape Coral group expanded rapidly, it was apparent that each\ncity would need to create its own following to make sure a local representative\ncould man the requests, work with its city\u2019s own unique needs and policies.  Jamie Tischner, known as Jamie Lynn on\nFacebook, then took the reins.  She is a\ntransplant from Minnesota, she works for Suncoast Credit Union as a Retirement\nPlan Consultant, a dedicated resource for district staff retirement planning\nand has lived in Lehigh for 4 years.  As\na mother, she understands the depth of impact these tragedies have on the\ncommunity.  She stepped forward to take\non the task of Liaison for Lehigh Acres. Jamie attended the Lehigh Acres\nCommunity Council meeting on April 15th<\/sup>, 2019 where she was greeted\nwith open minds.  The Lehigh Acres\nCommunity Council, Lee County District 5 Commissioner Frank Mann was in\nattendance along with our Community Involvement Officer from LCSO, Kirk\nHettrick.  They allowed Jamie time to\nspeak in the minutes as the benches were already up for discussion on the\nagenda.  Jamie spoke about the cause and what\nthe movement was doing in the community. \nShe asked for their support and it was voted unanimously that Lee County\ndistrict 5 and the Council are in favor of the movement.  Lehigh Acres Community Council would like to\nsee Lehigh Acres lead by example in providing our children with a safer place\nto wait for their buses.  Lehigh Acres\nwas already working to make bus stops a priority in placing new LED light at\nbus stops across the city.  As they move\nforward in future meetings, local leaders plan to work with Jamie from Benches\nfor our Babes \u2013 Lehigh Acres in leading the way for bus stop safety.  LCSO Deputy Hettrick and members of the\ncouncil have been in frequent contact to keep the community aware and involved\nin the project.  Lehigh Acres will be\nhaving a build, date TBD at Mirror Lakes Golf Course.  Jamie is working with a few local businesses\nto discuss details of fundraising events and build sites locally to encourage\nmore local support.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first bench in Lehigh was placed at Shadow Lakes and\nBell Blvd, it was stolen after a few short days, prior to news coverage of the\nmovement and it was replaced to be stolen again.  After Jamie\u2019s first build and delivery event,\n16 more tables were placed in Lehigh Acres, one of those was also stolen off\nMilwaukee and Eisenhower.  The thief\ncommitted a felony by cutting down a stop sign to access the table and chain,\nwhich is only the cost of about $85 per Lowe\u2019s special pricing.  That was not enough to slow the\nmovement.  Now that word is spreading,\nLee County Sheriff\u2019s and local police have been protecting these tables while\nencouraging kids to be safer at stops. \nDuring a delivery, Daniel Webb was even pulled over to make sure the\ntables were not being stolen, but when the officer noticed who he was, they all\nhad a good laugh and let Dan continue on his way to drop more tables at stops. There\nare naysayers and other ideas floating around, but Benches for our Babes does\nnot want to divide on the many ways we can make stops safer in Lee County,\nrather team up in efforts, ideas, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the movement continues to grow with exponential support\nfrom the community, each locality faces growing pains associated with the\ngrowth.  With the busy lives of the\nleaders in the group and volunteers schedules rapidly changing from weekend to\nweekend, finding out more about how the needs vary, the teams work tirelessly\nto make sure everything runs smoothly, but the group got too big too fast and\nhave run into some logistical issues. \nWhere to build?  Who is coming to\ndeliver?  Are there enough locks and\nchain?  Do they have a sponsor for food\nor a porta-potty during events?  All\nthese questions arise week after week. \nThe movement could use a hand.  If\nyou would like to help, please reach out to one of the groups and the local\nliaison would be extremely grateful for any assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lehigh Acres: Benches for our Babes \u2013 Lehigh Acres<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cape Coral: Benches for Our Babes~A Cape Coral Group Focused On Children’s Safety<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Benches for our Babes is a community-based organization in Lee County Florida to advocate for children by providing a safe place for them to wait in the morning while waiting… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":42793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42792"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}