While most summer camps are all about kids having fun, not all can claim to help save lives.
From Monday through Thursday, the Columbus Fire and Rescue Junior Fire Academy Camp returned to the Boys and Girls Club of Columbus and Lowndes County, where about 50 children learned life-saving skills.
Unit Director and Director of Programs Brittany Turner said the club has hosted the program for more than 10 years. It keeps inviting CFR back, she said, because the camp has already helped one of the club’s children in the past.
“We actually had a student here who was able to take (the camp’s safety) information and use it to their ability in one emergency situation,” Turner said. “So we wanted to continue those efforts and to continue that partnership, and here we are years later, still implementing the same thing.”
CFR Chief Duane Hughes said camp participants learn about properly maintaining smoke alarms. Children also learn how to make an emergency plan to get out of their homes in the case of a fire, Hughes said, which can make all the difference.
Hughes referenced the May passing of Willie Baldwin, 15, and Taeveion Kidd, 10, in a New Hope house fire. He called the passing of the two boys a tragedy, and he said he hopes the camp prevents similar situations in the future.
“We lost two young lives,” Hughes said. “That really hits the emergency response community hard, because all the responders, the majority of them have children, and they see their children in that situation. It’s a severe blow. So anything that we can do that’s going to help protect our young ones, we definitely give our all to that.”
Hughes said the department’s fire safety education was “severely hampered” by the COVID-19 pandemic. But by educating children about safely handling and extinguishing matches and lighters, he hopes the camp can decrease instances of fires accidentally set by juveniles, along with other fires.
“Our fire safety message and the ability to get it out was severely hampered,” Hughes said. “Word of mouth and word from the children’s mouth did a lot with lowering instances of fire in Columbus.”
While fire safety is serious business, the camp included lots of fun for the kids, too. Campers heard from a Columbus Police Department officer, along with Lowndes County Emergency Management Agency Director Cindy Lawrence. They also had the chance to climb into the CFR fire trucks and an ambulance.
Turner said the ambulance visited for the first time, as several of the children at the club had expressed previous interest in becoming an emergency health care provider.
“While they were taking the little tour and learning different things about (the ambulance), one of the kids got off and said, ‘oh, this is better than a movie,’” Turner said.
Hughes said being around firefighters can also help young children learn to trust the emergency responders when they need help. The camp could also inspire firefighters of the future, he said.
“You never know,” Hughes said. “There are a couple of firefighters that are working in the department now that their first exposure to the fire department was at the Boys and Girls Club. We may be planting seeds to get our replacements trained up and ready.”
On the final day of the camp, firefighters came out with their hoses to set up water walls and hoses with diffuser nozzles on them, giving the children one final “water day” to celebrate the end of the camp. Turner called the water day the “icing on the cake” for the camp.
For more information on area Boys and Girls Clubs, visit bgcgoldentri.org/.
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