Author: Designated Dawgs

Hi everyone! 

The end of this 2021-2022 school year marked Designated Dawgs twenty-first year of operations. We are also happy to announce that this year we gave over 1,000 rides! 

This spring semester we were also awarded a grant to fund next year’s operations by the UGA Parents Leadership Council and cannot thank them enough for their support! 

We also grew our Executive Board these past couple months and streamlined multiple positions in preparation for next year after four of our amazing senior Exec Board members graduated this month. We’re sad to lose these four incredible seniors but wish them all the best in their post-grad plans! 

Lastly, our program would not be possible without all the support we had this year and we want to thank every UGA student, parent, and faculty and staff member who helped support us as we began our return to normal operations. 

We cannot wait to resume our operations later this fall and as always, Go Dawgs! 

Sincerely, 

Kate Whitley 

Vice President of Communications 

Hello everyone! 

On February 18th and 19th, six of our executive team members had the incredible opportunity to attend the Safe Ride Programs United Conference at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon. Our team is so grateful for this experience and cannot thank the UGA Parents Grant enough for their financial support and dedication to having us attend the conference. We would also like to thank Brett Jackson at UGA Transportation Services enough for her guidance while planning the trip. 

While at the SRPU Conference, we got to learn and collaborate with dozens of other students and staff from universities all across the country. We learned about how different schools conduct operations, support their students, and give back to their communities. We even got to hear from a representative from MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) and how safe-ride programs help spread their message. 

One big takeaway our executive team had after attending this conference was our continued dedication to advocating for full support from the University of Georgia. Almost every university that attended the SRPU Conference talked about the funding and support they receive from their universities or how they completely operate inside of their university system. With this support and funding, they are able to have their own fleets of vehicles, pay their drivers and navigators a livable wage, and provide safe-rides to under-supported populations like students with families and students living with disabilities. 

All of these are things Designated Dawgs is committed to one day having. After this year’s conference, we are hopeful for the future of our organization and can’t wait to continue serving our UGA community through our amazing volunteers for the rest of the Spring 2022 semester! 

Sincerely, 

Kate Whitley 

Vice President of Communications

 
At the end of last month, three of our Exec board members, Charlotte, Ali, and Catherine, had the privilege of attending the Safe Ride Programs United (SRPU) Conference at the University of Arizona in Tuscon. They got to meet and collaborate with over a dozen other safe ride programs from colleges across the nation, and learned a lot about how to improve our organization. Their new knowledge and ideas will help us have our best semester of operations yet. 

Despite some crazy weather, we had a great start to the school year this month with 317 rides. Thank you to Alpha Phi Omega for sponsoring an entire weekend of operations; we appreciate your dedication to our organization. However, we are just getting started: we still need volunteers for the rest of the semester!! If you’re interested, sign up here: goo.gl/Vk9tFl

We thank all of our volunteers and riders for making Designated Dawgs possible! Go Dawgs!

For those that don’t know, we have utilized Enterprise’s cars for our operations for years. Our executive board enjoyed meeting yesterday with Jacobi Dolphin of Enterprise’s corporate office and Tyler of our Athens Enterprise location.

Thank you so much to our Volunteers on Thursday, February 12th. We gave 70 rides!