RamRide Ride Along
At midnight on Saturday, Aron Schulz was not at a party,
restaurant or at home watching TV. Instead, the junior psychology
and technical journalism double major was driving a rental mini-van
through the streets of Fort Collins.
Schulz is a volunteer driver with RamRide, a program sponsored
by the Associated Students of CSU that provides safe transportation
for students on Friday and Saturday nights.
“I’m doing it just to get involved, just the overall aspect of
doing something good,” Schulz said.
Lindsey Hansen, a senior French and art double major, also
volunteered for RamRide, and rode with Schulz.
“It’s so much more of a productive thing to do on a Friday
night,” Hansen said. “You’re helping people this way and it’s a
service a lot of people appreciate.”
Schulz agreed that volunteering was better than the
alternative.
“It’s better than spending your Sundays all hung-over,” he
said.
Around midnight, Hansen and Schulz picked up Crystal Matthews, a
sophomore human development and family studies major, from a
party.
“I have never drunk and drove in my life,” Matthews said.
“(RamRide) is keeping me from drinking and driving, and that’s
awesome.”
Anna Mangan, a freshman open-option major, also rode RamRide for
her second time Saturday night. She found out about the program by
word of mouth. She said she definitely plans to use it in the
future.
Schulz said if he were not volunteering on his weekend nights,
he would be drinking instead.
“I guess growing up and not needing to get drunk at a party (is
what changed my mind),” he said.
Schulz is working six nights this semester, a commitment all
RamRide volunteers are asked to make.
“You have to find the right kind of people that would be willing
to give up a weekend night,” Hansen said.
Mangan said she and a group of friends were planning on taking
the training and volunteering themselves. She said that while it
was good to encourage people to volunteer, six nights might be too
much for some.
“I think it’d be a lot easier for them to find volunteers if it
was like ‘hey, I can do it two nights, that’s all I want to do,'”
Mangan said.
Saturday was Schulz’s first night volunteering for RamRide after
he attended training on Thursday.
The one and a half hour class covered safety procedures, how to
handle sexual abuse and an explanation of the paperwork involved,
Schulz said.
Some situations were not covered in the training, as Britta
Schroeder, one RamRide volunteer, can attest.
One night, Schroeder pulled up to a curb in Old Town where
people not listed for a pick-up asked for a ride. Schroeder said
she couldn’t give them one.
“They were like ‘no, please, that guy over there.’ They pointed
to him and there’s this guy, waving a gun around,” Schroeder
said.
She called RamRide dispatch and asked what to do. They told her
to close the doors and drive away.
“Unfortunely, I had to leave them,” she said. “But you’ve got to
worry about the safety of you and your navigator first, I
guess.”
Despite the possible danger, both Schulz and Hansen said they
plan to volunteer in the future.
“They ask you that if you’re going to volunteer that you make
somewhat of a commitment,” Hansen said. “Just because without the
volunteers this program wouldn’t run.”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.