MAYOR'S MESSAGE

Craig A. Stough 6/30/04

"Safety City Graduates 189"

I was pleased to attend the Safety City graduation of 189 Sylvania five year old children on Friday, June 18^th. This was Sylvania Safety City's 19^th year and over 3600 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 Maplewood Elementary School. Important topics covered included:

Memorization of Name, Address and Telephone Number

Classroom Skills

Crossing the Street

Traffic Signs and Signals

Seat Belts

Fire Prevention

Stop, Drop and Roll

Strangers

Electrical Safety

Riding a School Bus

Bicycle Safety

Railroad Crossings

Safety Around Animals

Medical Emergencies and Ambulances

Hospitals

A neighborhood of streets, sidewalks, signs, crosswalk, 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 help to 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, Toledo Edison, the Lucas County Dog Warden, Major Magic's Pizza, Norfolk-Southern RR/Operation Lifesaver, Sylvania Rotary and Sylvania Schools for their assistance. Sylvania Safety City 2004 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. Police officers William Dryer, Dani Miller and Stacy Pack have trained to become Certified Child Passenger Safety Technicians. Since the program started in 2001 with the help of Dave White Chevrolet, they have checked 920 child safety seats at a variety of events around town resulting in 51 unsafe child seats being turned in and replaced at cost. If you would like to have a Child Safety Seat checked, please call the City of Sylvania Police at 419/885-8902 to set up an appointment, or look for them at upcoming community events.