Hello Iowa DARE Officers, Past President Jason Hoerner
I know you all thought, and probably relieved, that you were
done getting messages from me, but I just wanted to send out one more message
to all of you now that the 2024 conference is over and I’ve had some time to
reflect on all of it. First of all, I
want to thank all of you that were able to attend and made the conference a
huge success. I know it’s not easy to
schedule the time to be away during your busy summer schedules when there are
vacations to be taken, ball games, and staffing issues at work. I hope you were able to take away something
from the presentations that we had to help yourself be better whether it’s at
home or at work. We all have important
roles to countless people out there and a lot of students that look up to us
even if we don’t realize it and that’s why the relationships that we build are
so vital to what we do. We have to take
care of ourselves so we can be the best we can for those that need us.
I don’t know how many times that the different speakers that
presented to us would thank me for having them come to our conference and were
so happy and grateful for being able to speak to our group. Even as Molly and John were on their way home
to Tennessee and Florida, they kept texting to thank me for the opportunity and
wanted me to pass that on to all of you.
There are a lot of moving parts and pieces of the puzzle to
put together when planning a conference, but I do have to say it was a great
experience and I encourage you to seriously consider taking on that role at
some point. I thought I already knew a
lot about my community, but I learned so much more than I already knew. I made so many new contacts and learned about
many different resources that I had no idea existed. I knew we had a lot of support out there, but
as I was meeting with so many different people and organizations, I was amazed
by the amount of support we really do have, not just law enforcement in
general, but the DARE program. Many of
the people that I met with shared stories of when they were growing up and how
important the DARE program was to them whether it was here in Dubuque or from
wherever they grew up. If it wasn’t for
these people and organizations that believe in us and what we do every day,
much of what we saw at the conference would not have been possible.
I couldn’t have imagined the conference turning out any
better than it did, so thank you for being here and being a part of it and I
look forward to seeing all of you in Webster City next year. I hope you enjoy the rest of the summer, and
always, stay safe out there.
Thank you,
Jason
