Lacey Grad Dubbed Hero of the Year

A Lacey Township alumna will be the face of a billboard campaign across South Jersey after being selected Hero of the Year at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.

Christine Padovani, a 2009graduate and current senior at Stockton, received the honor for the college’s branch of the HERO Campaign, a nonprofit organization that promotes the use of designated drivers.

Padovani, a member of Stockton’s Tri Sigma chapter, was nominated by one of her sorority sisters.

“Christine does a lot for all of us in the sorority,” junior Amanda Sarno said. Padovani is always willing to drop off and pick up her sisters at all hours of the night, even if it interrupts her sleep.

“I thought it would be a nice way to thank her,” she said.

Padovani’s aunt died from a car crash after being struck by a drunk driver.

“It was really hard on the family,” Padovani said. “If that person had a designated driver, that never would have happened.”

But the fate of Padovani's aunt is just one of the reasons that drives her to be a designated driver.

“I just care genuinely about everyone around me and I want to make sure everyone’s safe,” she said. “Someone has to do that if they’re not going to take responsibility for themselves.”

As the third Hero of the Year at Stockton, Padovani will represent the campaign and will be a spokesperson for different programs, Padovani said.

“Every day I’m going to make sure I hold all the standards that a hero should have,” she said.

The HERO Campaign, which was launched 12 years ago by Bill and Muriel Elliot after the couple’s son John, 22, was struck and killed by a drunken driver in Salem County, is currently looking for locations for the billboards.

Padovani said one might be on the expressway going to Atlantic City.

“It’s a marketing campaign to change peoples behavior,” Bill Elliot explained. “Its basic purpose is to promote the use of safe and sober designated drivers.”

Drunken accidents claim 15,000 lives a year and injures a quarter million more, he said. Over the last 50 years, more Americans have lost their lives to drunk driving than all of the country’s foreign wars combined.

“It is an epidemic that is basically a bad choice on the part of the person who gets behind the wheel while driving drunk,” Elliot said

The decision accounts for 40,000 arrests and impounded cars yearly and for every arrest, it is estimated that 100 or more people are driving drunk, he said.

“A lot of people are driving intoxicated and our son was killed by one who was drinking for 10 hours straight,” he said. “Laws are not enough. We’re trying to use a positive approach.”

The organization uses a three-pronged approach through schools, bars and law enforcement, he said.

“Our goal is to have one million designated drivers nationwide,” he said. “We want to have designated driving as common as wearing seatbelts. Seatbelts save lives. So does designated driving."

Padovani was recently honored at a HERO Campaign dinner on Wednesday, April 4 for her efforts, Elliot said.

“She was thrilled and overwhelmed emotionally,” he said. “It meant a lot to her and it meant a lot to us as well. Christine is an example of how (the campaign is) working at colleges. She did all the right things to make her classmates want to select her for this honor. The campaign is resonating and the message is not lost on young people.”

The HERO Campaign is currently launching Jersey Shore Heroes. The organization is seeking 500 bars from Sandy Hook to Cape May to participate in a program in which they would pledge to serve free non-alcoholic drinks to designated drivers.

To become a Jersey Shore Hero, or a “good guy” as Elliot calls them, click here.

For more information on the HERO Campaign, visit http://herocampaign.org/.