Social restrictions based on COVID last year prevented us from going to schools to educate students about fire prevention and safety. And while the pandemic forced us to alter how we presented our safety message this year, it didn’t stop us from visiting about 400 kindergartners in seven area schools. “We normally do part of our presentation inside the classrooms, but we didn’t want to risk that this year for the safety of the students and our firefighters,” says Public Education Coordinator, Dave Schmitke. “Instead we split up into groups on either side of the fire engine and read our fire safety book as well as showed the kids what firefighters look like when they’re fully geared up.”
For this younger group of students the goals are very straightforward: “Stay low and go”, “Get out and stay out, and “Go to your meeting place.” We use the book, “No Dragons for Tea” to accomplish this message, and it’s a pretty good book–keeps the kids attention.
We hope to be able to present our safety message to older students in the Spring, so let’s hope those COVID numbers decline.
