The Joyful Child Foundation's first initiative, Samantha's PRIDE community awareness and child watch program is designed to help parents and neighbors organize their communities to prevent crimes against children.

Samantha's PRIDE offers guidelines to facilitate a custom plan for organizing amongst friends and neighbors. Some PRIDEs have rotating schedules for walking children to and from school, others agree to certain days or times when the PRIDE parents will be on watch outside or at the local park. Other PRIDEs simply hold regular PRIDE family events to foster a sense of community. All PRIDE activities are done in public view and with at least two adults present.

Most PRIDEs start around schools so a PTA or parent club meeting is a great place to introduce the program and invite other concerned parents to participate.

All PRIDE participants agree to have their fingerprints taken and sent through the FBI's Child Abuse Index. Unfortunately, The Joyful Child Foundation does not yet have the capacity to manage background checks outside of California so we cannot yet send PRIDE Protector vests or signs outside of California. In the meantime, if you are not in California, we urge you to sign up for an on-line PRIDE website to help organize your community, download Samantha's PRIDE below to facilitate a neighborhood discussion and start working together to better protect your community's children.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT STARTING YOUR OWN NEIGHBORHOOD'S PRIDE WEBSITE ANYWHERE IN THE USA!!!