25 Ways to Celebrate McGruff's 25th Anniversary!

1. Host a birthday party with McGruff as the guest of honor! Use the occasion to honor volunteers, crime prevention officers, and young people who work to reduce crime in their communities.

2. Invite teens from a local Teens, Crime, and the Community (visit www.nationaltcc.org or call 202-466-6272) site to design and run a drug abuse prevention assembly for area schools and/or youth groups. Ask McGruff to help hand out informational brochures.

3. Work with Neighborhood Watch groups to sponsor home security surveys for community residents. Invite law enforcement officials to address preventing crime in homes. Provide home/apartment safety checklists for attendees to evaluate how secure their homes are.

4. Hold a mock mediation at a local school. Teachers, community program leaders, and parents can guide youth through conflict scenarios, modeling techniques to resolve conflicts. Choose scenarios from history, the Boston Tea Party; from the environment, loggers and protectors of the spotted owl; or from school life, a fight over a boyfriend or girlfriend.

5. Host a celebratory event to acknowledge youth who have turned their lives around. Highlight service projects these youth have planned and carried out and demonstrate how youth are contributing positively to their communities.

6. Start or get involved in a Triad program. Triad promotes partnerships between senior citizens and the law enforcement community, both to prevent crime against the elderly and to help law enforcement benefit from the talents of older people. If you're interested, call Triad at the National Sheriffs' Association, 703-836-7827, or contact your chief of police, sheriff, or AARP chapter or visit www.sheriffs.org.

7. Show your pride in the community with a Safe Communities parade. Encourage area Neighborhood Watch groups to participate. Make sure McGruff walks in the parade. Invite the chief of police to speak on the benefits of community crime prevention programs. After the parade, hold a community rally to recognize neighborhoods with the most significant improvements and the greatest reductions in crime.

8. Organize a gun trade-in program. Work with local law enforcement to collect unused, unwanted, or illegal firearms. Offer incentives for people to turn in handguns, such as a cash payment, grocery store certificates, or concert tickets. Guarantee anonymity for owners of illegal guns. Be sure to include an educational component that reinforces the impact of gun violence and the importance of safely storing guns kept at home.

9. Partner with local government officials to discuss substance abuse issues facing your community. Ask the mayor and chief of police to take part. Encourage members of the community, law enforcement, and government to discuss possible solutions.

10. Join forces with Neighborhood Watch groups, civic associations, employee groups, runners clubs, and youth groups to paint over graffiti, clean up a road side, or fix a neighborhood playground. Be sure to contact local law enforcement if you decide to paint over graffiti so it can be photographed for tracking and evidence, if necessary. Ask local merchants to donate supplies.

11. Promote travel safety by partnering with airports, airlines, port authorities, hotels and motels, chambers of commerce, and other related industries. Organize a poster contest on travel safety with local schools. Reproduce the winning entry and hang in travel-oriented locales.

12. Celebrate 25 years of taking a bite out of crime with McGruff by linking to the Crime Dog's prevention information Web site. Visit www.weprevent.org to find out how.

13. Organize a National Night Out event in your community. Arrange for McGruff to attend the festivities. For more information on National Night Out, contact the National Association of Town Watch, 800-NITE-OUT.

14. Help create safer schools. Law enforcement, school principals, and parents can work together to firmly enforce zero-tolerance policies toward weapons, alcohol, and other illegal drugs, as well as bans on tobacco use, if they are in place. Enforce local laws as well as school policies. Provide alternatives to suspensions where possible and appropriate. Ask youth to help.

15. Partner with local health care workers, social service organizations, domestic violence shelters, hotline staff, victim-witness groups, and law enforcement to hold a "speak out" for young people on violence against intimates. Candid discussions on the issue can lead to shared expectations about what behavior is unacceptable and how to get help or help others in abusive relationships.

16. Start a weekly column in the local newspaper that features crime prevention tips from McGruff. Or reproduce McGruff Toons in your group's newsletter. To order your free copy, call 800-627-2911.

17. Help high school students help themselves by starting a peer counseling program.

18. Raise money to buy a McGruff costume for your local law enforcement agency: host a pancake breakfast or potluck dinner, sell baked goods, wash cars, or organize a walk-a-thon.

19. Call on local media (newspapers, magazines, radio, and television) managers to do their part in taking a bite out of crime by running the National Citizens' Crime Prevention Campaign's public service advertisements.

20. Partner with your local American Legion chapter and sponsor a children's fingerprinting drive at a school, community center, or shopping mall. Have McGruff on hand to help police officers distribute crime prevention information.

21. Develop a plan for crime prevention messages for major holidays and milestones of the year, such as Halloween, back-to-school, winter holidays, and summer vacations.  Involve leaders of different cultural and language groups in the community in planning events and activities.

22. Start or expand McGruff House® and McGruff Truck® programs.

23. Take pictures or videos during McGruff events and post them on your website.

24. Present a proclamation to local government leaders at a council or board meeting.

25. Tell us about it! Prepare a report for www.ncpc.org or Catalyst.