LAURINBURG — More than 50 children learned all about safety this past week during the annual Safety Town put on by the United Way of Scotland County.
Safety Town is a five-day program open to children ages 4 to 8. It gives them an opportunity to learn about how to cross the street and the importance of stopping for stoplights in the child-sized city composed of facades representing homes and businesses. But the children also learn from emergency personnel and other agencies about other precautions, as well.
The children in attendance this week learned about animal safety from the Scotland County Humane Society; gun safety from the Scotland County Sheriff’s Office; germ prevention from the Red Cross; pedestrian safety from the North Carolina Highway Patrol; what do in case of a fire from the Scotland County Firefighters Association; stranger danger from the Laurinburg Police Department; and plenty more during the program.
“It’s a great program, the kids have really enjoyed themselves,” said United Way Director Coy Moody. “They’re learning a lot of things for school as well like how to walk in a line and how to sit at the lunch table, so it’s a great program to get them prepared for pre-K.”
This year, 40 of the students were able to attend the course thanks to an anonymous donor. Moody said while on WLNC’s “Live on Main” talking about Safety Town, someone called in and wanted to donate to sponsor children in hopes of getting more to participate.
“It was the first time that I know of that someone had done this,” Moody said. “It’s such an amazing thing to do, since a lot of parents do want to send their kids but they don’t have the extra funds to do so.”
Moody added there was an increase in growth in this year’s attendance, which she believes was likely to have come due to the extra funding.
The program also takes plenty of volunteers to keep it running smoothly, with more than 30 volunteers helping throughout the week.
“A lot of our volunteers have done it before, but we also have a lot of new faces out here,” Moody said. “I’m really thankful for them because the United Way couldn’t do this without them and they help keep it moving.”
A returning volunteers is JoAnne McNair, who has been volunteering since 2003. McNair is employed by the Scotland County School District and has lived in Scotland County all her life so she sees it as a way to give back to the community.
“Getting to watch the children interact through all the activities and with each other is amazing,” McNair said. “They all have so much enthusiasm for what they’re doing, and the parents will come back to us telling us they’ve been sharing what they learned with them.”
McNair said the biggest change has come to Safely Town over her years is of the actual course for the children. The course used to be made of bulky cardboard structures and has now moved to easy to move nicely made buildings and includes battery operated redlights and railroad crossings.
The new buildings were paid for in 2017 by a grant the United Way received, and it also helped pay for new trikes and helmets for children to use on the course.
McNair added she was happy to see so many volunteers of different ages out helping with the program. One of the new faces belonged to Natalie High, who currently works as an athletic trainer for St. Andrews University.
“The interactions with the kids has been great,” High said. “They’re already so knowledgeable and they’re always asking how my night was or how my day is going.
“It’s been great being able to watch them grow from day one where they were all shy and reserved to now where they’re all chatterboxes talking to us and amongst themselves,” she added.
High added it’s also been a learning opportunity for her as well, with all the safety classes she has learned things she didn’t know.
Safety Town is yearly program that takes place over the course of a week in June for three hours a day. For information or for more on the United Way of Scotland County visit its website at www.uwscotco.org.
Reach Katelin Gandee at 910-506-3171 or at [email protected]
