Local Safety Days Familiarize Families With Emergency Best Practices
KOSCIUSKO COUNTY — Safety first is a motto most families live by. Cities have begun providing communities with the information necessary to be as safe as possible.
One of the largest and most popular in the area is the Warsaw Family Safety Day held in Central Park. The annual event took place Saturday, Sept. 7.
Originally started in the 1990s to promote fire safety, the event only lasted a couple of years. It began in response to a specific incident in which the child of a local school principal had their Halloween costume catch on fire. Shirley Fetrow, a member of the Family Safety Day committee, explained the purpose was “mostly fire safety for Halloween and Halloween costumes.” This early safety day included local law enforcement and sponsorship from the Ronald McDonald House.
Despite having its early beginning in just fire safety, the event has grown during the last 20 years. In 2004, it became a community event with a large planning committee. As seen Sept. 7, it takes over the whole of Central Park.
Chief Michael Wilson explained how the fire department has also expanded its responsibilities in that time. “We’ve gone from being just a fire department to an all encompassing emergency services team,” he stated. They now learn trench rescue, water rescue, confined space rescue and advanced nontransport services.
“Anything we can do to help in an emergency event,” he assured. The Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory firefighters are then able to demonstrate to the public all the ways they are able to assist at the annual safety day event.
Funding for the event used to be gathered by going door to door or making phone calls. The event committee caught a break five or six years ago when Kosciusko REMC approached them to help sponsor the event. Lutheran then joined as a sponsor. Without these sponsors, “we wouldn’t be able to do it at this level,” Fetrow described. Previously they had used grants to help fund the event but with sponsorship where it is currently, that has not been necessary.
Other businesses have also approached the safety day committee to be sponsors because they understand the importance of the event. ProTechs provides meals for the vendors. Sponsors and vendors donate time, money and supplies. Many agencies and organizations throughout the city buy in to the event in order for it to continue.
Safety Day committee members consider the annual event a way to give back to the community with fun, education and information. “To bring everyone together in one place,” Fetrow described. “That’s unique for our area and we’re pretty proud of that.” The primary goal of the event is to eliminate fire and injury issues and educate the community on both life and fire safety.
The town of Pierceton also has an annual Fire Safety Day event. Alicia Elder is in her fourth year of helping to organize this open house at the Pierceton Fire Department. While organizers are unable to recall precisely what year the event started, it has been a tradition for years.
While the Pierceton Fire Safety Day focuses on fire safety, it still remains a community event with input and information from various organizations including Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Big Brothers and Big Sisters, Bowen Center and the Hoosier Burn Camp.
Elder emphasized, “We wanted a free family friendly event to take place locally for children to learn and have interaction with the local firemen.” For the community and the participants, Elder described how this event is “important to the fire department to take the time to remind children that we are there to help and protect. Although our firemen have large pieces of clothing on, they aren’t scary people. Rather just a caring man or woman there to help them.”
These ever increasing safety day events teach children the importance of staying calm in an emergency and instill practices such as stop, drop and roll and staying low to the ground and not hiding in a fire. The purpose of these events is “to teach all aspects of safety plus make it fun and interesting,” Fetrow proclaimed.