Safety City hopes to expand its local reach through community partnerships

By KENDALL KING, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter on February 23, 2022.

Safety City, a local organization offering educational safety programs to students and community members, is looking to expand programming through community partnerships and engagement.

“Safety City began as a project from the Gad City Kiwanis Club and opened for operations in 1981,” Ron Pennington, Safety City chair told the News. “There’s two parts to Safety City. We have the facility (where) the schools bring the kids (to learn. The other part is … we have educators that will go out to the schools and present in classrooms.”

A variety of programs are offered at Safety City, which aim to inform children about potential dangers and how to stay safe in a dangerous situation, as well as everyday life. These include programs about biking and road safety, potential hazards in the home or on farms, staying safe online and more.

“Each month we pick a different theme,” said Pennington.

The themes for February are conflict management and how to stay safe in a situation involving bullying.

“We want these young kids to learn something to be able to make better and safer choices for themselves in their life,” said Pennington. “If we can benefit one child and have them make a better decision to avoid an injury or disruption in their life, it’s really beneficial.”

“In our calendar year period, we may do up to 800 or 900 presentations and reach anywhere from 12,000 to 15,000 kids,” Pennington said. “It’s a big thing.”

Safety City also offers programming for adults, such as how to safely install an infant car seat, however variety of programs is limited, something Pennington hopes to address.

“I got involved around June of 2019 and Safety City was not in a very good place. It was being poorly managed, they were having some struggles and we were very, very close, at that time, to ceasing operations in the city.”

Since 2019, Pennington and Safety City staff have worked to build community connections with the hopes of creating new partnerships and programming opportunities.

“Now, we’re just trying to get the word out to the community that Safety City is very valuable,” said Pennington. “We need money – like any organization – to function, and the more funding we get, the more programs we can run. (But) it’s not just about money, it’s about people getting involved.”

Individuals and organizations interested in supporting Safety City are invited to connect with Pennington by calling 587-253-2020.