Teen Maze will save lives

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The penalties for breaking the rules in the “Game of Life” can be harsh.

And Whitfield County Family Connection doesn’t want local teens to discover that truth from painful experience.

This week some 2,300 tenth-graders from schools in Whitfield and Murray counties are traveling through the Teen Maze at Dalton’s North Georgia Agricultural Fairgrounds. Students start the maze by listening to motivational speaker Chris Sandy, whose award-winning program “Enduring Regret” talks about how his decision to drink and drive affected his life and many others.

With the help of actors, many of them students themselves, the teens will witness the carnage of a deadly automobile crash, and some will even attend their own “funeral.” Others will wind up in the emergency room, juvenile court or the pregnancy clinic.

The local community has really come together to support this effort, providing time, money and encouragement, with more than 200 volunteers expected to help out with the program.

Some of the many companies and organizations involved include the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office, Shaw Industries, Walmart, Georgia Family Connection, Hamilton Medical Center, Chick-fil-A, Dan Combs State Farm, Caylor Industrial Sales, the North Georgia Agricultural Fairgrounds, Courtyard by Marriott and the Kiwanis Club of Dalton.

Teen Maze has the potential to save lives, not just the lives of those students who take part in the event, but the lives of those around them.

Everyone who has helped make this event deserves our thanks.

Read the story on daltondailycitizen.com.

Georgia Family Connection is a statewide network with a Collaborative in all 159 counties.