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Amanda Brinkman is now 19 but she vividly remembers getting her first ticket, soon after getting her drivers license.
“Officer Poe stopped me on Stewart Street,” she said. “When he asked me if I knew why I was stopped, I said ‘because I was speeding?’ So he gave me a ticket for speeding and for running a stop sign that I hadn’t seen.”
She candidly describes her reaction. “I was frustrated,” she said. Brinkman’s parents decided against paying the fine for her ticket, and she ended up being one of the first SWEAT teens in Azle. Success With Every Azle Teen (SWEAT) is a program implemented about six years ago by the Azle Police Department. Teens perform community service to pay off fines for traffic tickets and other minor infractions.
Since her first service with SWEAT, Brinkman has frequently put in voluntary time to be a supervisor of teen work crews. Now she sees an upside. “If it hadn’t happened, I would never have spent so much time with (Azle police officers). I expected them to be mean, but once I got to know them, I liked them,” she said. She said teens generally have a negative view of police unless they know someone who is an officer. SWEAT is one opportunity to meet and work with Azle officers. The SWEAT program underwent an overhaul last year when an East Texas college provided an academic audit of the program and made some suggestions that were largely administrative in nature. Briefly, the program has been used to perform work for the city that would otherwise have required paid labor, including cleaning up parks, creeks and roadsides. The teens have also done yard work for the elderly and disabled who are clients of Good NEWS, a local home block nursing program that is dedicated to helping people remain independent in their homes. SWEAT teens also have frequently performed work during Azle’s Good Neighbors program, which helps older, disabled and low-income residents repair and maintain their homes. SWEAT teens put in 12 work days during the six months after Stephen F. Austin University graduate students made their recommendations, including a day getting Central Park ready for Follow the Flag last July 4, according to Chief of Police Steve Myers. The teens worked 940 person-hours. The program counted 158 teens performing community service, although many of the kids are counted more than once because they were present on more than one of those work days. Brinkman is a currently a student at Tarrant County College in Fort Worth but expects to transfer to University of North Texas soon. She plans to be a junior high English teacher. Myers said the police department “was smart enough” to stop Brinkman that day three years ago and get her involved in the program. Brinkman laughs and adds, “My parents weren’t going to pay for that ticket.” Her father is an officer with the Tarrant County Sheriff’s office, she said. Brinkman said most kids in SWEAT “don’t want to be there.” But, “somebody has to pay for the ticket.” Brinkman said her fondest memories come from helping elderly residents with their yardwork. “One lady came up to me and said ‘You have no idea how much I appreciate this.’ I was almost in tears before we were through talking. “After working (with police officers and SWEAT), I wanted to help more,” she said. She also takes personal pride in the beauty of Central Park because she was among the youngsters who helped clean up the area prior to its opening. “It’s good to get outside and put hard work into something,” she said. “People tend to just see negatives. Sometimes it is hard to see the positive, but it’s there.” |
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