*All about Us*
The Internet Predator Awareness Team
In
December of 2002, Kacie Rene` Woody was abducted and murdered by an internet
predator. Not wanting his daughter’s death to be in vain, Cpl. Rick Woody
of the Greenbrier Police Department knew that students and parents needed to be
educated to the dangers of internet predators. Rick knew that he had to come up
with a way to get these children to listen and understand the dangers of the
internet, and what better way to get through to them, then to put some of their
own peers in front of them…and so, in March 2005, the I.P.A. team was
born. The original team consists of 10 members, all of which were randomly
chosen high school students from Greenbrier. Rick, along with these students,
worked day and night on a presentation that would bring the dangers of the
predators to life. And on April 3rd, all of their hard work paid
off, as they successfully completed their first public presentation. After
graduation, the I.P.A. team lost 7 of their members, but we’ve gained 10
back. So, as our team rapidly grows, so does the number of presentations. Since
April 3rd, we’ve done over 80 presentations to students,
parents, teachers, and law enforcement officers. And though we are still young, we are
growing quickly. We now have I.P.A. branches in
The Presentations
Our
presentations consist of real life stories of students and family members who
have personally felt the affects of internet predators. As well as, some
stories from our own team members. Many of our team members had personal
information listed on the internet. You will hear the true story of three team
members having a face-to-face meeting with people they first met online.
You’ll hear the story of a team member who was a good friend of Kacie,
having a picture on the computer of David Fuller (Kacie’s abductor). And
finally, you’ll hear Kacie’s story told by Rick as many pictures of
Kacie are seen up on the screen.
A Team… A Family
In
order to be successful at we are trying to accomplish, we are constantly
together, working on the presentations and thinking of more ways to get our
message across. Because of this, we have become a very close group, we are not
just a team anymore, we are a family. Each and every
one of the team members brings something unique and special to the group, and
that, mixed with the shared love of helping others, makes for a bond that is
hard to break. We strive on the happiness felt when a parent comes up to us and
thanks us for saving their child. There’s no feeling like it, and if one
life is saved then this team has met its goal. We love working together in this
team and love making a difference in people’s lives, and look forward to
the future of this team.
Brianne
The
Internet Predator Awareness team was brought together by Cpl. Rick Woody. From
the experience Rick had with loosing a child from an internet predator, Rick
felt he needed to bring internet safety to the classroom. He didn’t want
it to be just another safety lesson.
He knew that the dangers of the internet had to be brought to life. He
couldn’t think of a better way to make things real than to put in front
of them some of their peers of which had, had experiences with online
relationships. So, in March of 2005 he went to a few students he knew and asked
them if they would be interested in being involved in taking internet safety
issues to the classroom. These students jumped at the chance. From there he
formed an internet predator awareness team. Since April 3, 2005 we have done
over 200 presentations for students, teachers, parents, and law enforcement
officers. We have also trained students from other schools to help bring
internet safety to the classroom. Our presentations consist of real life
stories, including some stories from our own team members lives. Many of our
team members had had personal information in their screen names. One team
member had a webpage with every bit of her personal information out there. She
had many pictures of her friends, family, and of herself. Three more of our team members had
developed online relationships with people they didn’t know. After
talking to these people for awhile they went out and met them in person. They
were very lucky because they live to tell their story.
Kelli
There
are 15 members on our team. Before Rick had gotten us together, there were only
a few of us who hung out on a regular basis. Now that we’ve been together
all summer working on our presentations we have come together as a family. We all work very hard on building these
presentations, and trying to get through to the students how serious this
really is. In order to do this, we have to be close, and work together. In
doing this, I speak for myself as well as everyone else, that it has changed
all of our lives in a lot of different ways. We strive to work hard to change
other people’s lives also. Some people don’t see the importance in
what we do. But, a few others and I can tell you that this stuff is very
important.
Sissy