East Valley students learn to fight off stranger danger

The Coachella Valley Unified School District partnered with Mika Moulton, founder of Christopher’s Clubhouse, to teach children at Mecca Elementary School what a stranger is and what to do if they approach you.

“If you don’t know somebody, that’s a stranger,” said 5-year-old Ricardo Felix.

Moulton knows painfully well about child kidnappings. Someone abducted and killed her son Christopher 20 years ago. She started Christopher’s Clubhouse to teach safety education, including shouting “no” and running away when you’re in danger.

Principal Gracie Avalos said safety needs to be at the forefront and students need to be alert.

“We’ve had a number of incidents within our Coachella Valley where students safety has been compromised as students have been walking to and from school,” said Avalos.

Moulton showed students how if they’re at a distance where they can’t touch fingertips with their parents or guardians in public, they can easily be taken by a stranger. If that happens and they are grabbed the kids now know to clench their fists for high hammer fists and low hammer fists.

“You punch in the nose and yell ‘no’ and run,” said Ricardo.

“It’s so difficult these kids think they know someone after five minutes and all of sudden ‘Oh this is a cool person.’ Predators know these tricks. We’re teaching these kids you don’t go anywhere without permission,” said Moulton.

Within the next three weeks, Christopher’s Clubhouse will travel to different schools in the east Coachella Valley to train more than 5,000 students in the Coachella Valley Unified School District.

The organization needs more volunteers to teach the program and funding to help teach children how to fight off the bad guys.

For more information and if you’d like to donate, go to www.christophersclubhouse.org