Team Robins expands AADD; 24/7 ops now available to all Published Oct. 2, 2015 By Jenny Gordon Robins Public Affairs ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. -- The newly-formed Airmen Against Drunk Driving Council was established this past August in an effort to not only provide a service for Team Robins should they need a safe ride home, but to also educate and promote programs throughout the year that can benefit everyone. "DUIs destroy lives," said Master Sgt. Tiefton Chatman, AADD president. "Not only in the physical and emotional sense, but when you get a DUI in our world it ruins careers. What we are here for is to save lives and careers." Since the council's first meeting in late August, a 12-member council was elected, representative of mission partners from across Robins. As the council aims to rebrand and expand the AADD program, some of its immediate plans are to visit squadrons across Robins to seek assistance in setting up a rotating volunteer system throughout the year. Anyone - active duty, reservists, civilians, contractors - can serve as a volunteer or escort on a team. Those efforts started Thursday. Currently, the AADD program includes volunteers who pick up those who need a ride home on Friday and Saturday evenings. AADD will soon move to a 24-hour, 7 day-a-week, stand-by, volunteer operation where different units each week can be on-call should someone need services. If you find that your primary plans fall through and you need a ride home, an AADD volunteer will bring you home. Call 478-222-0013 for a ride. Anyone can call AADD, from active duty members and civilians, to contractors and dependents. Peak times for assistance are Friday and Saturday nights from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m., as well as for special events, such as the Air Force Ball. When the new weekly stand-by teams roll out, the idea is to have everyone be a part of this important program, said Chatman. Since Saturday nights are the busiest, the council would like to have a dispatcher, along with two teams in place, and a third stand-by team. A volunteer team will always include a member of the opposite sex as needed; for example, if a rider is a female, one of the assisting volunteers will be female. According to recent numbers from the Community Action Information Board, which takes a strategic, cross-functional look at quality of life, personal readiness and community issues to formulate long-term solutions, reports of DUIs decreased this year from 2014. In calendar 2014, there were 28 reports of on-base and off-base incidents; in 2015, there were 10. There were 197 people AADD picked up to date in 2015, with 85 calls made; in 2014, there were 234 saves and 105 calls made to AADD.