Saturday morning, officials from several local public service groups will converge on the courthouse lawn with one goal in mind: educating the public about safety.

From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Focus On Safety will give members of the public, especially children, the opportunity to learn about safety while having fun.

"The goal of this event is to provide a forum to inform the public of many ways they can become more safety conscious throughout the year," said Ann Sweet, one of the Focus On Safety organizers. "Safety, or the lack of, is such an important part of our lives. We can feel very fortunate when we and our loved ones are safe.

"We teach our children that if there is a problem or an emergency, they should contact the police department, fire department or EMS," said Sweet. "But many times children are intimidated by these officials. We want to give them a chance to put a face with the organization and feel comfortable around them."

Saturday, children and adults will have the chance to meet members of the fire department, police and sheriff's departments and other local emergency services. Nearly two dozen booths will be set up on the courthouse lawn to hand out information and stress the importance of safety in everyday life.

"Children will be allowed to explore inside a squad car, a fire truck and an ambulance with supervision," said Sweet.

"We will have a DARE booth, and fingerprint ID kits for children," said Kosciusko County Sheriff Aaron Rovenstine. "We will also have a K-9 officer there, and there may be dogs from other departments there as well."

"We plan to hand out coloring books that are designed to let children know that we are there to take care of them, not to hurt them," said EMS representative Tracy Cutler.

Another focus of the event centers around Halloween safety.

Local firefighters will give demonstrations about costume safety and flammability. Throughout the day, firefighters will show the flammability of many store-bought costumes by igniting them to prove how quickly they burn.

"We are going to focus on the basic safety of costumes for Halloween," said Jeff Rostochek of the Warsaw Fire Department. "We burn the costumes to show that even if the label says that the costume is fire resistant, it can still catch on fire and burn very quickly. Some homemade costumes are also very flammable. We also want to point out the dangers of impaired vision. Basically, we want to make people more aware of safety, especially costume safety."

"We want to make sure people are conscious and watch costumes to be sure that children's vision is not obstructed," said Cutler.

"This event is being held at a very opportune time, since there are some very real challenges at Halloween time due to highly flammable costumes and open flames from candles, luminaries and bonfires," said Sweet.

Along with the demonstrations, there will also be children's games, face painting, food and prizes given away throughout the day.

Focus On Safety came about when three local women - Sweet, Stacey Anderson and and JoElla Smyth - got together and decided that an event about safety would be good for the community.

"A few years ago there was an event called SafetyFest, but we were not involved in that," said Sweet. "Each of the three coordinators have lived with the effects of not being safe. Basically, we were three concerned moms who have connections with police, fire and emergency agencies, and we felt this was a good idea. Safety is an important part of all of our lives. We want to help people become safer."

In case of rain, the event will move from the courthouse lawn to Warsaw Fire Station One. [[In-content Ad]]