Dads Trade Overtime for Quality Time

Nov. 17, 2008— -- Jim Moore remembers how helpless he felt the day he heard of a school shooting in Jonesboro, Ark. Even though it was far from where his own children went to school in Springdale, Ark., the news made his children anxious, and he felt the need to do something -- anything.

"I thought about the people in our community, and could this happen here?" Moore said.

So, Moore called a friend, Eric Snow, who also had children in school -- and what sprung up was the national WatchDOGS organization, a group of fathers and other figures who volunteer to serve at least one day each year at school activities to promote safety.

Moore believed it was the right thing to do.

"I began to think about, well, who's there that's making a difference and who's not there? And it really just kind of hit me -- somebody who's not there who could be there is me," he said. "And I thought, 'well, what if you could create a program for fathers, and father figures, that come to school just to be that extra set of eyes and ears for the students and for the teachers?'"

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From that small beginning has sprung a national corps of 45,000 dads who volunteer in more than 800 schools nationwide. WatchDOGS, which originally stood for "Watch Dads of George Students," after the George Elementary School in Springdale, Ark., where Moore's children attended school, has blossomed into a national movement, "Dads of Great Students."

At the outset, there were many who doubted that Moore could convince fathers to take a day off of work to volunteer at school; especially that they could be persuaded to do it more than once.

"But you know what? They do," said Moore. "Because there really is this thing taking place in our country and the world -- a paradigm shift -- where men really, honestly do want to spend time with their kids."