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Junglemobile rolls through
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| Jaymye Stanton, 5, watches while exhibitors at the Junglemobile talk about seatbelt safety at the Campbell County Fair on Thursday morning. The Junglemobile brought several displays that teach children about safety in their lives. - News-Record photo by Nathan Payne |
By JEREMY GOLDMEIER, News-Record Writer jgoldmeier@gillettenewsrecord.net
It’s a jungle in here, all right. The preschoolers arrive in swarms under the big, circus-style tent in front of Cam-plex. They swirl through eight educational stations, trying on life jackets, crossing make-believe streets and dialing 911. Just as soon as one excitable group leaves, another pops in to take its place.The Junglemobile has arrived in Gillette, and hopefully it will leave the city a safer place when it departs. Dawn McEwen rode up in the vehicle ” an old ambulance repainted in sharp green ” from Denver. As a member of Kiwanis International, she follows the Junglemobile through small towns in Wyoming, Colorado and parts of Nebraska.
At each stop, the ambulance unloads its supplies and puts on a safety expo for youngsters before moving on down the road.
“The Junglemobile doesn’t go to the big Denver areas,” McEwen says. “It’s primarily used as outreach for smaller communities.”
Handling most of the safety stations are teenaged volunteers from Campbell County Memorial Hospital. Keeping the scattered attention spans of preschoolers in check is a heady challenge, but they find ways to keep them engaged. Fire safety volunteer Kelsi Sexton, 12, gets the tykes to burn some energy by stopping, dropping and rolling.
While teaching the kids about seat-belt safety, sibling duo Wendy and Jenna Sneeden allow the kids to smash Barbie doll cars together, sending the toy vehicles hurtling off of the play table. The dolls in the first car have their seat belts on, and survive the ordeal unscratched. In the other vehicle, however, it’s a horrifying scene of mangled, plastic limbs. It’s a simple illustration, but one that these volunteers hope sinks in.
“I was in a car crash at 16, and if I hadn’t worn my seat belt, I’d be dead,” Wendy says after the kids have left for the next station.
Mother Jennifer Carroll is also seeing the value of bringing her three children to the event. At the fire safety station, she gets involved with the activities, crawling and rolling alongside her daughter Bella, 4, and son Tommy, 2. She even includes her 6-month-old son Oliver, rolling him on the soft practice mat herself. At home, Carroll tries to keep safety a familiar issue, but now some professionals have her back.
“I say these things to them, but it’s nice to have someone else tell them so I don’t seem like the crazy one,” Carroll says.
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