Director of Relevant Deb Heino attended this Tuesday’s Associated Students of NMU meeting to talk about Relevant’s Safe Rides Home program.

Currently, the program is only offered once a year, around Halloween; its purpose is to ensure that students get home safely after a night of drinking. The program reduces the risk of drinking and driving.

“I know college students are going to drink whether I agree or disagree with them drinking. My main concern is that they get home safely,” Heino said.

The presentation merely informed the members of ASNMU about the safe rides program –– how the members of Relevant have been conducting the program as well as some of the things that could be done if more student organizations got involved.

“Our organization is really small, so we can only offer this program once a semester. That’s why we’re approaching ASNMU, because this program is something that needs to happen every weekend,” Heino said.

Whether or not ASNMU will get involved is still up in the air. Based on the numbers Heino provided in the presentation, it would cost $604.50 to start up the program in addition to the $13,472 it would cost to run the program each semester. A decision to get involved or not will be made in the next few weeks.

Two new members, Eli Wolf and Miranda Revere, were appointed to the Student Finance Committee. Referendum Committee had its first meeting last week, where they selected Lucy Hough as the chair.

The bike-share program is still working on getting the bikes in order for the spring. Right now there is a small group of volunteers that gets together on Thursday evenings to make any necessary repairs to the bikes.

If anyone is interested in helping maintain the bikes, email graduate studies representative Chris Kovala at [email protected].