Students looking for a safe ride home this weekend won’t need anything besides access to a phone for a couple minutes. Members of Alpha Phi Omega, a national service fraternity, have brought SMU Rides back to campus after solving the contractual complications that caused the program to previously shut down.
“Knowing that SMU Rides is back gives me security as a young woman because I know that if I’m stuck somewhere without money or a car, I’ll still have a safe way to get back home,” sophomore Lauren Smyth said.
SMU Rides is a program focused on getting students home safely from off-campus locations. It is available for students to use from 10:30 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night and is free.
SMU Rides has no connection with the SMU police and is completely confidential – they will not ask you any questions about your night, your age or what you’ve been doing.
They simply give you a free ride back to campus.
There is one stipulation – you must have your SMU I.D. to prove that you are a current SMU student.
Also, SMU Rides only takes students from where they are off-campus to their dorm or their apartment on or near the SMU campus.
For example, if a student has been to a concert downtown or bar hopping on Greenville, he or she can call SMU Rides to be brought back to campus dorms or University Park apartments.
To use SMU Rides, students can dial (214) 768-7443 or (214) SMU-RIDE, and will be asked for the location, first name, the number of people accompanying (the limit is four people per cab) and the destination. SMU Rides uses student volunteers to answer the phones.
The volunteers then call the Executive Cab Company to dispatch a taxi to pick-up locations. The service SMU Rides provides depends on the assistance of student volunteers.
Volunteers normally answer the SMU Rides phones for about four-and-a-half hours, but students who don’t have time to work the whole shift can split up the time with other students. Volunteering for SMU Rides gives students a way to earn community service hours, especially for those busy during the day who may have more free time at night. Current SMU Rides Chair Darius Tavasoli said volunteers typically “come with a group and… bring board games or a movie,” to entertain themselves while they wait on calls. Other volunteers use the time to study. Group organizations or individual volunteers are both welcome.
“Volunteers are probably the most important thing to the SMU Rides program,” said former SMU Rides Chairperson Johanna Raad.
Even though APO sponsors and manages the program, other student volunteers are vital in order to keep the program going.
For more information about the SMU Rides program, students can email Darius Tavasoli at [email protected].
