[Music] the explorer program is a program for kids 14 to 21 years of age who have an interest in law enforcement doesn't mean they want to be a cop but they have an interest in what we do they want to see what we're about we meet september through april we meet every sunday night and we basically do a mini academy so combination of presentations from officers demonstrations and the key thing is hands-on scenarios and then that culminates in the end of april when we go to a statewide competition in rochester they have to be 14 to 21 to be in the program we require a c average and one of the best things about our program at blaine is that we don't charge you anything the only requirement of our explorers is you have to buy your own pair of boots we found out the post was free and it was kind of exciting with all the volunteer work we do stores definitely drawn to it um i definitely love our advisors and we spend a lot of time with them and they kind of become your friends and then you have a lot of friends from the post that you spend so much time with or some of your best friends i've gone on to be hired as a community service officer for a different department and so it's definitely helpful in landing a job and going through the job interview process and then just working with people in general on the day-to-day basis of the job i encourage young folks to at least explore you know we call it the explorers explore this profession as an option you want to make a difference maybe you don't like the way things are you know what be a part of the change and i challenge people come out and be a part of the change come out and learn what it's all about learn the profession learn the particulars and maybe you'll consider doing it you know yourself and if if they don't end up pursuing a profession every explorer i always talk to um you know when or people who have been explorers they said it's the wonders for their self-confidence for their abilities to handle situations and me and work with other people and work on a team so it really is a worthy endeavor one of the key things that we do as explorers is we are very active in our community we have volunteer events every month whether that's the big ones like a week-long 3m golf tournament or they're helping our park and rec department with uh some of their you know fun in the park events or the flashlight pumpkin hunt or stuff like that we're very active in volunteering and trying to stay busy and giving back to the community i think it's important that we instill those values in the kids too so they realize that we're more than just the police officers on the street stopping cars we are a big part of our community and we're here to bring back to that as best as we can kind of cool to run into people you know when you're doing events um running into neighbors and stuff it's kind of cool to see that you give back and that they know that you give back in a sense that you have this pride almost like the school pride or like on a team pride it's almost kind of like that pride that you have when you give back and you kind of get to be a part of that community and show that you need to care we have our core values integrity respect and professionalism so we want to instill those values in our kids early on whether you're going to go in law enforcement or you're going to go off and work for some other corporation having those values and learning to talk to people learning to communicate learning to settle differences in a diplomatic manner so you're not you know just fighting with people all the time those are skills that are going to benefit you in life whether you go into our career you don't have to have an interest in law enforcement a lot of people have joined and maybe at one point had an interest and decided at some point that they weren't going to pursue a career but stayed in the program just because it's a great learning experience and there's a lot of life skills that we can gain from this program we're very heavy on the hands-on scenarios i don't want it to feel like you're sitting in a classroom with me lecturing you all day long there is brief sections of powerpoint at the start of our meetings but our big important part is the hands-on stuff we get kids involved we want you to feel like you're participating so some of the things that you're going to see is we do traffic stop scenarios so we teach kids how to initiate a traffic stop on a vehicle to do that safely how to run the proper computer checks all that kind of stuff we teach them to respond to say a burglary in progress how to properly clear a house take you know take control of suspects and do that safely you're also going to see some of the videos of our kids volunteering so 3m we have 16 kids on the course every day all day out there helping with security of the tournament and running errands and our explorers are very active in our department in the community and in all of our events so it the explorers are really vital to our organization and things that we do and that's why we want to recruit we want to get you guys that experience one thing that's super awesome is we get to do ride-alongs so that really helps us figure out exactly what department um or like what specialty i wrote along with cso which was super fun because i do want to be a cso um after explorers so it kind of gives you that feel and understanding of like what the job is honestly it's just a super fun program i definitely recommend it i've made some really long-term friends and i've met some really awesome people everything we learn here is applicable both in the policing world but also just in real life how to deal with people in crises in your own life how to uh defuse stressful situations how to stay calm under pressure how to be a good leader we learn all that here uh it's a great experience you learn tons of things have a lot of fun and a great part of the blaine program is that everything is free all expenses are covered and we don't have to pay anything out of pocket for that so a lot of great reasons to join it's a short term period but the development that we see and just that confidence level that gets built into kids it's rewarding we're passionate about working with our youth whether it's in our schools whether it's in our parks wherever it is we love that and that they're an important part of our community and we want to be we want them to feel that as well we want them to have a voice in the community and this is a way to do that [Music] you