Project Extra Mile, one of the demonstration projects, is located in Omaha, Nebraska. Extra Mile includes participants from law enforcement agencies, schools, health care, media, business, and the faith community. One early activity was a needs assessment, which included a review of the crash data for Sarpy and Douglas Counties, a survey of youth and adults, and several focus groups (representing youth, prosecutors, liquor store clerks, law enforcement officers, and parents). The results were discouraging. Forty-seven percent of youth had their first drink before the age of 14. Sixty-one percent of youth between the ages of 15 and 17, and 75 percent of those between 18 and 20, currently drank alcohol. State data revealed that 42 percent of Nebraska's young people had consumed five or more drinks at a sitting during the past 30 days. Executive Director Diane Riibe explained that "The needs assessment was an extremely important part of the process. It allowed us to identify our community's needs and was critical in helping us develop our mission statement and set our goals."

The focus groups identified three key motives that deter young people from drinking: the knowledge that they could injure or kill themselves or others in a crash, the fear of being arrested, and the loss of driving privileges. Armed with this knowledge, Extra Mile established five working groups: (1) Public Information and Education, (2) Access and Availability, (3) Enforcement and Adjudication, (4) Youth, and (5) Policy. These groups organized and implemented a number of complementary activities to reduce underage drinking.

Several of the activities involved youth as participants, not just targets. For example, Youth in Action is a group of young people trained by Project Extra Mile to focus on advocacy and the media. Toward this end they met with the governor in support of a state task force whose job would be to examine the problem of underage drinking and develop action plans for each school year.

The young people also participate in law enforcement compliance checks (or "stings") to identify retailers willing to sell alcohol to minors. Materials are distributed, reminding liquor retailers of their responsibility to check identification. Saturation enforcement demonstrates that young people will also be held responsible for their actions. Media partners ensure that each campaign is publicized to drive home the message that underage alcohol use is "illegal, unhealthy, and unacceptable." Riibe reports, "There has been a steady, significant decline in the number of businesses selling to kids. When we started the compliance campaigns in 1997, we had a 41 percent noncompliance rate. During the most recent campaign, the noncompliance rate was 21 percent."

Project Extra Mile achieved self-sustainability by incorporating as a nonprofit organization and obtaining local funding. The project is hiring a youth coordinator and, with the help of graduate students from a local university, will conduct a second needs assessment to assess its impact.