Festival helps children play it safe
In a world made for adults, the East Central Georgia Safe Kids Coalition and the Medical College of Georgia Children's Medical Center wants to teach the public how to integrate child safety into their routines.
Wrap Your Arms Around Safety was the theme of the Safe Kid Week Fun Festival on Saturday at Doctors Hospital Field behind the Evans Kroger to demonstrate child safety through activities and games.
The festival was the culmination of a weeklong series of child safety activities. The festival featured a water safety ring toss, the Fire Safe house, the poison prevention match game, "horse" racing for the safety savvy, an equipment identification race, Follow the Yellow Brick Road to Safety, and story time for pre-schoolers.
"We live in an adult world where nearly everything is marketed and created with adult comfort in mind," said Rene Hopkins, coordinator of the East Central Georgia Safe Kids Coalition. "With this, we can use fun games and activities to show parents and kids how to make their corner of the world a little safer and to make child safety a priority."
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Safe Kids was founded 15 years by a Washington D.C.-based trauma surgeon with the idea of educating the public on child safety hazards. Since then, the number of unintentional child injuries has decreased by 39 percent in the United States and 36 percent in Georgia.
Medical College of Georgia neonatal nurse Linda Turner shows Kimberly Diles, 5, of Martinez, the proper way to wear a bike helmet at the Safe Kids Week Fun Festival.
Photo by Donnie Fetter