KC CAN! In The News

Pupils to learn safety on mock street

By ALAN BAVLEY - The Kansas City Star
Date: 03/04/03

A new street is opening in Kansas City, one where children learn to cross at green lights, avoid railroad tracks, buckle their seat belts, and still manage to have fun.

It is Safety Street, a life-size mock-up of a city block that will serve as an outdoor classroom for teaching second-graders from throughout the metropolitan area a variety of safety skills, from how to wear a bicycle helmet to how to escape a burning building.

“This is hands-on. It’s interactive. Instead of being in a classroom and told all these things, they can come here and experience it,” said Lynette Laipple, executive director of the Kansas City Children’s Assistance Network, KC CAN for short.

Safety Street is the first project of KC CAN, a volunteer organization founded in 1999 by local professionals and businesspeople in their 20s and 30s.

On Safety Street, children will use a real Ford Taurus to learn the proper way to sit in a booster seat and buckle their seat belt. They will learn how to safely board and exit a bus, using a real bus. They also will wait to cross the street until an actual stoplight turns green.

The ribbon-cutting ceremony for Safety Street is Wednesday. Schoolchildren will begin visiting the street in April.

Safety Street, at Campbell Street and 24^th Terrace, took several years of fund raising, donated materials and volunteer labor to build. More than $350,000 was raised in cash and in-kind donations.

“When you’re looking at the non-profit world, we did it pretty quickly,” Laipple said. “Everything fell into place and was donated.”

The Kansas City Health Department provided the land on its Hospital Hill campus, a concrete trade association paved the street and sidewalks, and trade unions built storefronts.

Street signs, traffic lights and railroad tracks are in place. A car and school bus are parked by the curb.

At one end of the street is a classroom building where children will act out how to safely exit a home when the smoke alarm sounds. The classroom also has a row of sinks that Health Department personnel will use to teach proper hand washing.

Safety Street is modeled after a similar program organized in 1988 by Harlem Hospital in New York. The Harlem initiative resulted in a significant decline in childhood injuries. Other programs have been started in Atlanta, Pittsburgh and other cities.

The impetus to build Safety Street came from Denise Dowd, director of the Center for Childhood Safety at Children’s Mercy Hospital. Children’s Mercy will oversee the development of Safety Street’s curriculum.

The program has been designed for second-graders because “they’re at an age where they can retain information and apply what they’ve learned,” Laipple said.

School groups this spring will be limited to about 25 pupils, while Laipple tests out the program. During the summer, Safety Street will be open to day camps, Cub Scouts and Brownies. By fall, as many as 50 children a day will visit, Laipple said.

To reach Alan Bavley, call (816) 234-4858 or send e-mail to abavley@kcstar.com.