Mac's Safe Ride leaders in need of help to resume; pitch to town officials Thursday

by Dan McClelland

In the face of a shortage of board members and volunteer drivers and navigators, the leader of Mac's Safe Ride reached out to town officials for help at Thursday's town board meeting.

Vivian Smith, who directs the 13-member board that operates the volunteer get home safe driving program, offered several options of help from the town that evening.

In recent weeks Ms. Smith put out a call for volunteers in a front-page story published in the hometown weekly in recent weeks. As the evening and late night driving program emerges from the pandemic and leaders look to continue to resume the valuable weekend service, a shortage of volunteers is the reality right now.

Ms. Smith began her presentation that evening with a short briefing of the organization's role in the community as it shuttles folks out on the town between licensed drinking establishments and private parties with the intention to keep drivers under the influence off local streets and highways.

Distributing their operational brochure that evening she said Mac's was born on December 31, 2014- mirrored after a similar one that was started earlier by Tupper Lake native Gisele Lavigne Kress in Old Forge.

“I just wanted to remind everyone that Mac's is a great service and it's not for a lack of donations that we are not running right now, it's lack of volunteers!”

“The town...the community has been amazing in its support” of the program since its inception.

Mac's Safe Ride was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic about March, 2020. The leaders resumed it for a short time in late 2021- but the ongoing pandemic stopped it again.

“We were seeing our volunteers dwindle a little bit before COVID. When COVID came, we shut down. We started again the next year but when COVID returned we shut down again. Right now we are shut down!”

Ms. Smith said at this point she and her colleagues who direct Mac's don't have a clear path forward. There was a board of directors meeting last night from which she hoped a new plan will be forged, she told town officials at the monthly meeting last week.

“We'll have to see who shows up and what we can decide,” she admitted of her frustration at this point.

“The mission of Mac's is not to bring drunken people home. Our mission is to keep our roads safe!”

“No one started this to bring drunk people home.” She said she frequently hears that it is just a program to drive drunks home and that irritates her. “Our aim is to be proactive instead of reactive” and keep local streets and highway free of intoxicated drivers so that every motorist can be protected.

“I'm here before you this evening to see if there is something we can work out” to acquire the services of a paid driver. “-Or maybe (funding for) half a paid driver?”

She said that with someone to operate their van on a regular basis around town, there are many services it could provide- above and beyond the role Mac's uses it for.

“Maybe we could all sit down and think of ways it could be used in the community. The van just sits idle during the week.”

“In the past we have tried to open up for every event in town where alcohol is served.”

She said too Mac's Safe Ride may become even more important than it now is with the inability of the Tupper Lake Police Department to have enough active officers to staff round the clock shifts. Right now the department is only fielding a 12-hour day shift.

With no village patrols here after midnight, it may “entice more drinking and driving,” she worried.

“So it is important again to have us there!”

She said her board members have worked “tirelessly” to keep Mac's rolling on weekends and at special events.

“But we're tired. Our board members are tired. Our volunteers are tired. But I don't want to see it go!”

“Over the years we have given tens of thousands of rides to local people and visitors with the help of as many as 150 volunteers. It's been pretty amazing!”

Ms. Smith said she and her board is open to any and all ideas local elected leaders may have to help the life saving service continue here.

“I also thought of turning everything over to the town. We would still do our benefits and give those proceeds to the town,” she offered as one idea.

The Mac's Safe Ride program is currently a federal 501-3c program that enables donations to be tax-deductible.

Acting Supervisor Mary Fontana noted that the town, by law, can't take donations, but thought that maybe some arrangement could be worked out for the town to help the program.

“Have you tried hiring drivers?” Councilman John Gillis asked her. Vivian said that was tried unsuccessfully in the program Gisele Kress ran in Old Forge.

John Girouard, a member of the Mac's Safe Ride board here, said that in Old Forge they weren't able to raise enough money to continue to pay paid drivers and the program, unfortunately, just dried up.

Mrs. Smith said her organization for a time offered gift certificates to people to induce them to sign up to drive or navigate, but that practice was viewed as questionable.

“We also sponsored raffles where volunteers were entered in the contests for prizes...we've tried all sorts of things” to recruit volunteers.

She told the town officials, that although she has not discussed this idea with her board members yet, she thinks there is enough money in the Mac's bank account “to pay drivers for the summer. So that's an option before us that this point.”

She admitted there was a lot for her board “to talk about” when it met last night. “But I wanted to come here before you tonight to remind you who we are, what are mission is and how important it is!”

Mac's drivers and navigators “bring babysitters home after we take people home. We bring people to events and back from events where there's alcohol. We do weddings and events of all kinds here!”

John Gillis spoke to the importance of Mac's here. “I've used it and I've driven it,” he told his colleagues that evening. “I've had a blast driving it...it can be a lot of fun!”

“-And I hate to say our local teenagers use it, but they do. It's a safe way for them to get home!”

Councilwoman Tracy Luton, who directs the VFP Post here as its commander, noted Mac's role here is even more important in a community like ours since Tupper Lake has no taxi businesses. “Everyone relies on Mac's!”

Tupper Lake Business Group leader Mark Moeller, in attendance there on another matter that evening, joked that maybe some of the often entertaining late-night antics in the van could be filmed with the footage sold to Tic Toc.

Councilman Gillis and Ms. Smith assured him the very confidential nature of the rides, noting that “what happens in the van, stays in the van.”

“One of the reasons for coming before you this evening,” Ms. Smith told the town board members was just “to remind you and the community that we are not in the business of just bringing drunk people home every weekend. We don't have the same riders every weekend. Our goal is just to keep our roads safe for everyone!”

Mac's riders have included many visitors to Tupper Lake for many local events like the Northern Challenge, the Brewski...people who come here to snowmobile and camp and vacation, according to Ms. Smith.

“We are going to try our hardest to stay open, but we are looking for help and we are in dire need of help!” she emphasized.

Mr. Gillis supported what she said about tourists taking advantage of the service. “I've driven our visitors in the van and they are always blown away by the service....absolutely blown away and what a great community Tupper Lake is to do this!”

John Girouard offered the hope that evening that maybe with the town's help, an arrangement for Mac's to be able to pay some of its drivers could be worked out.

Kelly Fleury, a member of the Mac's board also in attendance that evening, noted that Vivian has covered all the important points for town board consideration in her talk that evening. Kelly was also instrumental is generating many of the facts presented in the recent Free Press article about the current state of Mac's Safe Ride right now.

“The only future we have is that we either need a lot more volunteers or we can get the funding to pay the drivers,” Mrs. Fleury said of the program's current predicament. “They are our only two options at this point,” she added.

When Ms. Smith wondered about town grants, Acting Supervisor Fontana offered access to several parties who have written successful grant applications for the town in the past. “There may be some things we can look into,” she told her.

With the expected arrival of train excursions coming to Tupper Lake in 2023, Mr. Moeller wondered if the Mac's van could somehow fit into the forthcoming ground transportation needs of the arriving train riders.

“The van could be used for other things like that,” Ms. Smith noted.

“Or it could be used to bring kids to the beach each summer, or to the ski slope, if it ever opens,” she offered as two other local uses.

Asked when her organization may hear from the town board on their requests, Councilwoman Luton spoke for her colleagues, promising to discuss it at length in the near future to help find a solution for the volunteer organization in its current challenge. “We definitely don't want to see Mac's go away!” she assured Ms. Smith and her volunteers.