Safety Expo 2009

I woke up early and immediately checked the radar and the rain/ snow mix was knocking on our doorstep. By the time we started setting up the sun was out in full force, which was great because it was chilly!

Some people couldn't make it at the last minute but others jumped in and filled their slots. We had more kids than last year but I'm still a little disappointed that we didn't have many more.

My policy is not to share pictures of student's faces so my pictures may make it appear that we didn't have a crowd which is not the case, I just have lots of pictures I won't share here.

The first two expos were held at the elementary school. It was great to be able to host it this year at our new facility.

The safety team bus, ambulance company, ladder truck and State Police.

We are lucky that two different fire departments participate. One department brought their off road rescue vehicle which is popular with kids and dads both. Both departments bring hand outs for the kids and the kids get little plastic firemen's helmets.

I'm thinking I can get a couple of more vehicles in there next year. Who can I invite?

The safety team bus simulates what a bus would be like in a roll over.
The Trooper brought lots of stuff to hand out too.

We let the kids ride up and down on the wheel chair lift to see what it is like for kids that have this ride every day.

The smoke bus was just as popular as ever. A member of our staff is also a volunteer firefighter and he does a great job with this and lots of us like to work at this station.

Sparky the Fire Dog was very popular. I had to crop out many faces but picture a large crowd off to the right.

New this year was a bike rodeo and it very popular. That's Nikki taking a turn on the course.

And of course I have to give equal time to Liz.

Here are Alex and Mike playing are you Safer than a 5th grader. One of the mechanics hooked up some old red lights with buttons that make them light so the kids can try to ring in first.

Here are other kids playing the game. We roped off the shop for safety but wanted everyone to have a peek at our new state of the art facility.

We had inside safety displays too. We were lucky to get someone from the power company to volunteer her time and bring this display.

And there was lots of food and drink in our training center so everyone could get a break from the cold.

There were other displays that I don't have pictures of to share. We had one of the huge parking lot plows and the local police out on the loop. A driver and attendant taught safe crossing. We had a table full of health hand outs and one of the building nurses doing blood pressure checks. Transportation staff also manned tables displaying items you can't bring on the bus as well as the very popular face painting. Bean let us borrow her pop corn machine and it ran non-stop.

And as always we ended the day with a drawing for the bikes that had been donated.

This was by far our best year yet. I'll be working on thank-you notes next week and then planning will start for next year. If you have any ideas for displays or activities we could incorporate for next year I'd love to hear them!