Citizens' Crime Watch recently held its 35th Annual Board meeting and the election of its officers.

The 2009-10 board members are Irving Heller, president; Robert Parker, vice president; Sam Harte, treasurer; Anna Carazo-Hohanning, secretary.

The members at large are: James Dibernardo, Richard Masten, Roger Fritze, Miami-Dade Commissioner Joe Martinez, Tammie Clearfield, Annie Ross, Richard Strachan, Terri Guttman Valdez, Nancy Burdelsky, Charles Hurley, Oscar Vigoa, Frank Fernandez, Priscilla M. Rivera, David Ward, Naim Erched, Craig M. Dorne, Sofian A. Zakkout, Meg Garza and Guillermo Diaz Rousselot.

This was a trying year because of budgets, and this coming year will be worse. We have officially been advised that we will loose $22,925 -- about 30 percent -- from our budget. But to make it worse, now that Miami-Dade county commissioners lost their discretionary funds, they will not be able to supplement the $37,500 cut two years ago from our original budget. So we are losing a total of $60,425.

This will be a major impact for program materials, crime watch signs, stickers and T-shirts. We will be able to continue to host crime watch meetings but will be extremely limited in providing the crime prevention materials.

But not all is bad news, because school board members and Superintendent Alberto Carvalho have reinstated our Youth Crime Watch funding for this school year.

Now here are just a few things we accomplished this past year with a budget of $326,500 that we won't have this year.

Neighborhood Watch Program:

• Established more than 715 new Neighborhood Watch groups countywide as well as revitalizing 325 old groups. These new groups, revitalized groups and many Safety events brought a total of reaching 56,000 residents, and distributed more than 135,000 pieces of crime prevention literature.

• Responded to more than 1,700 inquires through our newly designed website www.citizenscrimewatch.com from around the country, South America, England, Germany, Netherlands, Canada, Philippines, France, Colombia, Argentina.

Visitors to our website averaged 2,000 a month.

• Coordinated Senior Crime Prevention programs reaching over 845 seniors.

Youth Crime Watch of Miami-Dade Program:

Although the funding for this program was limited, our coordinators conducted 36 Club meetings, 443 crime prevention presentations and served more than 37,000 students. Our coordinators distributed 38,000 pieces of crime prevention literature to the students, parents, teachers and school police officers.

Our McGruff program participated in classroom presentations, school assemblies in topics such as anti-bullying prevention, sexting, Internet safety, drug awareness and reporting crimes in their school.

Until next week, be safe and be involved in your community, because you do make a difference.

Carmen Caldwell is executive director of the Citizens' Crime Watch of Miami-Dade. Send feedback and news for this column to her at carmen@citizenscrimewatch.com, or call her, 305-470-1670.

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