In a recent study looking at fire safety awareness among students, fire safety was not a high priority (no surprise, really!). What was interesting was that when these students realized they had a gap in what they know about how to protect themselves from fire, they wanted to know more! The challenge is giving them this information in a way that they will remember.
In June 2010, the Minger Foundation was awarded a Fire Prevention and Safety Grant by the Department of Homeland Security to create a campus fire safety community service program. The goals of this project is to provide opportunities for college students to work alongside their fire departments in delivering fire prevention to the community. By having students work side-by-side with the local fire department, they will…
- Give back to the community
- Help those living in high-risk circumstances reduce their chances of dying or being injured in a fire
- Provide assistance to the local fire department in delivering fire prevention to the community
- Learn first-hand about fire safety that will help them while they are in college and for the rest of their lives. After all, isn’t college about learning life skills?
The idea is to have students actively engaged in fire safety, not just sitting in a room learning about it. By being out in the community, doing hands-on projects, they can learn first-hand and also help others.
What are some of the projects that can be done?
- Going with fire fighters to install smoke alarms in the community – and these don’t have to be off-campus student housing. Senior citizens, low income and other occupancies that are statistically at a high-risk for fatal fires are where a significant impact can be made.
- Working with fire personnel on delivering fire safety training and education to different groups in the community
- Sprinkler system installations in occupancies such as Habitat for Humanity homes can be done by working with sprinkler installers.
These are only some suggestions…in your community there may very well be other opportunities as well to engage students in fire safety outreach projects. You may very well have an existing program where you can easily involve the students!
Pilots of this program have been done in various communities in North Carolina in September 2010 and at Eastern Kentucky University and Oregon State University in September 2011 and were incredibly successful. If you need more information, please contact us.
Schools across the nation are invited to take part in this landmark project to involve students in giving back to the community and learning first-hand about fire safety. Working together, schools and fire departments can help strengthen their communities and also make sure that students know how to prevent fires and what to do if one happens – saving lives and preventing injuries.
Any school can take part – all it takes is a phone call between the campus and the fire department to get the ball rolling. You can use the resources on this web site to help build out your program. Are you going to be doing programs that you would like to have included here? Contact us!
Look for our next tournament date in September of 2012!