Marlton Telegram

By TONY MARQUIS | The Marlton Telegram
Connected by tragedy, John and Claudia Farrace are joining efforts with a Medford family to expand a teen driver safety program in the Lenape Regional High School District.
The Farraces donated $30,000 to the district for new driving simulators from the memorial fund of their son Anthony, who was killed in a car accident in 2007.
In the past, the Farraces have donated money from the fund to scholarships for Cherokee High School students, but after they read about driving simulator donations to Shawnee High School from the Fitzpatricks in Medford – who also lost their son, Ryan, in a car accident – the Farraces wanted to help.
“It will affect every child that comes through the district,” said Claudia of the program.
The simulators, made by Virtual Driver interactive, allow students to sit in a virtual car with a seatbelt, wheel, gas, brakes, three monitors and cameras that track the driver’s eye movement. Students are taken through several training programs, which simulate dangerous driving situations and weather conditions.
Because of the Fitzpatricks’ donation, there are three simulators at Shawnee High School. The district expects another to be at Cherokee soon. The simulators cost about $10,600 each.
“We’ve had great excitement with what students are able to achieve from them,” Board of Education member John Heitmann said. “It’s a wonderful thing. It’s great technology, and it’s a very safe way to give students an opportunity that they don’t always get.”
Both memorial funds consist of donations from the community, including businesses, friends and family members. The Farraces had donated more than $10,000 to scholarships before committing to buy the driving simulators.
“That just kind of helps one person, one kid,” John said. “And we thought about it – our community was so great to us.”
Local groups like the Medford-Vincentown Rotary Club and the New Jersey Manufacturers Insurance Company have also provided significant funds to the program.
Car crashes are the leading cause of death for teens, according to the Centers for Disease Control. In 2008, about 3,500 teens were killed in car accidents.
For Dan Fitzpatrick, donating money to buy simulators was an effort to do anything he could to prevent fatal teen car crashes.
“Obviously when you lose someone in a tragic accident, in an automobile accident, you certainly don’t want that to happen to anyone again – it’s very painful,” Fitzpatrick said. “So we tried to come up with ways of providing a safer situation.”