Safety City visits schools

Posted on September 23, 2014 by Sunny South News

Many residents in Lethbridge County thought Safety City, the miniature town with streets and street signs located at the side of Exhibition Park disappeared, but that’s far from the truth.

Safety City has been visiting schools throughout the county teaching students about a wide-range of safety tips.

“Before we took over Safety City with Exhibition Park, the schools would come to Safety City. They would have to provide their own transportation and insurance for getting kids off the sites or if they would go to them, they would have to pay a cost. Now, with us going into the schools, we can reach so many more children because I go into a different school everyday, sometimes two or three schools in a day and there’s no charge for it at all. We can reach all the kids. We go out as far as Taber. I’ve been out as far as Mountain View and as far as the Crowsnest Pass. We cover all that area,” said Shawna Joel, event and Safety City co-ordinator for Lethbridge Exhibition Park, adding currently Safety City is teaching kids about germs and proper hand washing techniques.

“It sounds like such a simple thing but it’s actually quite good because I bring in a black light and we do an interactive-type thing,” added Joel.

Safety City topics include everything from cyberbullying and pedestrian safety to bike and home safety, which Joel said Safety City will be working with Atco Gas for the energy portion, in regards to home safety.

Joel noted she sends out an invitation to school district offices to mention what program is being offered at the time and the school districts forward the information to the schools, which is first come first serve for booking.

Safety City has also partnered with Ag For Life to send out a roll-over simulator (ROS) to schools throughout the county.

“We’ve been doing that since October of last year. We’ve just come to the end of our first year with that. We go into all the schools, actually up to the high school level with that one,” said Joel, adding Safety City also visits the Hutterite colonies in the area.

Joel said Safety City programs run from September until June of each year, with the summer being utilized for planning the next year’s programming but the ROS runs throughout the entire year.

Atco Gas recently announced a three-year partnership with Lethbridge Exhibition Park becoming presenting title partner of Safety City, at a media scrum held at Exhibition Park in Lethbridge last Tuesday morning.

Safety City is a safety education program that visits Lethbridge and area schools to teach important lessons on a range of topics.

Atco Gas’s support of Safety City will include presentations, as well as information and materials from its own safety education programs teaching about the hazards and safety associated with natural gas in the home.

Materials offered from Atco Gas include activity books, interactive online games and Safety Quest, a mobile app free to download on iTunes and Google Play.

Atco’s mascot “Digger” was also on hand at the recent media scrum to celebrate the partnership.

Mike Shaw, from Atco Gas, said community safety is important. Atco Gas and Exhibition Park have been partners for over 15 years in various ways.

“Our support will help further extend Exhibition Park Safety City programming into our schools. Safety City does a great job connecting with local youth. We look forward to helping them extend that into the schools, helping them promote that great message that they get out there. Connecting with children in our community, I think we all agree, is so important. Safety City finds a unique way to do that. They bring the safety message to children but they also bring that home to their friends and their families and share that safety message with the community. Ultimately, it creates a safer community,” said Shaw, during his presentation at the media scrum.