SPRINGFIELD — People are taught all kinds of safety rules when they’re young: rules like looking both ways before crossing the road, wearing a life jacket around water, and not sticking things in electrical outlets.
Last week, 58 pupils graduated from Safety Town, a two-week summer camp held at Yolanda Elementary School, where incoming kindergarteners learn as many of these rules as possible.
“This is such a good introduction to kindergarten, because a lot of them will be going to public school,” said Christy Connor, program teacher. “They’re learning that they have to sit on the carpet and they have to raise their hand. They’re learning playground rules. It helps them be really comfortable when they come into school.”
At the camp, a kid-sized town is set up with a traffic light, crosswalks, stop signs, and houses to help teach the children about traffic safety.
Guest speakers, like firefighters and police officers, also come in regularly to get the kids excited about other topics.
Springfield’s Safety Town is sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of Downtown Springfield and run almost entirely by local volunteers.
This year, Safety Town extended its age limit to incoming third graders for kids who missed out the past three years because of the pandemic, said Tami Dillon, program director.
“Keeping our kids safe is a challenge, and if we can’t get those skills built when they’re little, it’s harder and harder to get them built when they’re older,” Dillon said. “If we can make it fun and make these lessons stick, we’re more likely to have a safer community as we go forward.”
For Evie Dillon, a teenage volunteer and graduate of the program, the lessons surely stuck.
“I joined because I enjoyed doing it when I was in Safety Town,” she said. “I wanted to help kids now with the things that I learned. I still think they’re important.”
Safety town always ends with a graduation where the children show off everything they learned with their families. And now that the program is over for this summer, Tami is “already starting to work on next year,” she said.
