(My apologies - I was out at a conference last week so my Grant Gazings are a week behind. To make up for this I will post twice this week).

If you are a parent and you are anything like me you may worry about things long before it is necessary. Or maybe it wasn’t necessary at all. I look at my two young sons with their polar opposite personalities and I consider how those personalities will play into their teenage lives. One of my biggest worries comes out in - how they will handle being responsible drivers in the future? This one can keep me up at night. Although my oldest is still 11 I am already looking for articles, data and promising practices to improve outcomes for teen drivers: this is how I found today’s opportunity. I was even more pleased to see that one of the partners presenting this project, the National Youth Leadership Council, is a client of the Improve Group.

This week’s pick: State Farm and the National Youth Leadership Council (NYLC) are collaborating on Project Ignition for U.S. public school students enrolled in grades 9-12. This grant program aims to improve teen driver safety through public awareness and service-learning projects.

Twenty-five semi finalists and ten finalists will receive $2,000 and $5,000 awards, respectively. Applications are due by May 16, 2008 and more information can be accessed here. Oh and for those of you "mature" enough to remember the old Hill Street Blues television series, "Be careful out there."