Sylvania's Safety City helped 165 children this year

Sylvania Mayor Craig Stough. Enlarge

I was pleased to attend the Safety City graduation of 165 Sylvania five year old children on Friday, June 15th.

This was Sylvania Safety City's 27th year and over 4,750 students have attended. Sylvania's children are our most important asset, and Sylvania's version of Safety City helps to get them off to a safe start before they enter school.

The children attended either a morning or an afternoon class for five days at the new Maplewood Elementary School. Important topics covered included:

• Memorization of Name, Address and Telephone Number
• Classroom Skills
• Safely Crossing the Street
• Traffic Signs and Signals
• Seat Belt Safety
• Fire Prevention
• Stop, Drop and Roll
• Stranger Danger
• School Bus Safety and going for a short school bus ride
• Bicycle Safety including always wearing a helmet
• Railroad Crossings Safety
• Safety around animals
• Medical Emergencies and Ambulances
• Hospitals

A neighborhood of streets, sidewalks, signs, crosswalks, lights, etc. is set up to help practice safety.

The children get to meet police officers, firefighters and other emergency personnel and learn those people are their friends and want to help them.

Thank you to all who helped make Safety City a great experience for our children, including all the teachers, police officers, firefighters and other personnel and volunteers who helped out.

Also, our thanks to: Flower Hospital, the Lucas County Dog Warden, Norfolk-Southern Railroad/Operation Lifesaver and Engineer Steve, Republic Services and Garbage Gus, the Sylvania Township Fire Department, and the Sylvania Schools for their assistance.

Sylvania Safety City 2012 was a great success because of all of you. And thank you to all the parents for entrusting your children to us and for supporting the program and attending the graduation ceremony.

Incidentally, another great program of the Sylvania Police Division is the Child Safety Seat Program.

Sergeants Dani Miller and Stacey Pack have been trained and certified as Child Passenger Safety Technicians. Since the program started in 2001, with the help of Dave White Chevrolet and Safe Kids of Greater Toledo, they have checked or installed over 2,000 child safety seats at a variety of events around town. On an average, 9 out of 10 car seats were found to be improperly installed.

If you would like to have a child safety seat checked, please contact the Sylvania Police Division at 419-885-8902 to set up an appointment, or look for them at upcoming community events.

If you have general questions regarding installation of child seats or child passenger safety laws in Ohio, please visit www.sylvaniapolice.com, and look for the Children Safety Seat section under Community Affairs.