Children at Mansfield Police Safety Town watched a demonstration by Richland County Sheriff’s Officer K9 Jax, a Belgian shepherd, and Deputy Alec Miller at the former Spanish Immersion School, 240 Euclid Ave.
On June 25, Safety Town youngsters, who will enter kindergarten in the fall, had some questions for the deputy about his dog, but preferred to share information about their pets with him.
In the gym, Jax wore a muzzle and entertained the kids with his obedience skills. Jax even demonstrated how he can help law enforcement apprehend someone, as Mansfield Police Detective Korey Kaufman pretended to be a fleeing suspect.
Students got to know Mansfield School Resource Officer Matt Brewster and Charlie, who is part of the Mansfield Police Department’s Canine Therapy Project, which aims to support students, teachers and staff affected by trauma and foster good relationships between police and the community.
Safety Town, a safety education program, was founded in 1937 in Mansfield by Traffic Commissioner Frend Boals and Kindergarten Teacher Ruth Robbins. It was designed to teach traffic safety to pre-kindergarten children in a free community program.
Safety Town operates across more than 40 U.S. states and more than 50 countries, with participation estimated in the millions.
Safety Town in its 89th year has been sponsored by Mansfield police and funded by private donations ever since. The support has enabled the city to keep the program free for children and their families.
The third session is July 6-10 and July 13-17, open to all children who cannot attend the first two sessions. It includes Mansfield YMCA and other students, according to Ginger Antrican, who oversees the program each year. This summer is Antrican’s last Safety Town after about 23 years. She is retiring from Mansfield police after 32 years.
“The kids learn fire safety, water safety, police safety, bicycle safety, drug safety, canine safety — just things every child should learn, but some parents might not think about it,” she said. After the 10-day program, students celebrate with a graduation ceremony for parents wearing construction paper mortar board hats.
New documentary tells the Safety Town story
A feature documentary now completing production tells the story of Safety Town.
Written and directed by H. Spencer Young and shot by cinematographer Claudia Raschke (“RBG,” “Boys State,” “Julia,” “My Name Is Pauli Murray”), the film was recently named a finalist for the Rogovy Miller/Packan Documentary Film Fund, according to a news release.
Patrick Hamm, whose work has screened at SXSW, IDFA, and CPH:DOX, serves as producer.
Safety Town’s miniature cities feature working traffic lights, scaled-down buildings, real streets and pedal cars that teach children how to move safely through the world around them. For nearly a century, the program has run on volunteers, retired educators, Rotary and Kiwanis clubs, police and fire departments, and PTA parents.
Rooted in child safety, it has also become a working example of civic life sustained at the neighborhood level.
“This is one of the great untold American stories,” Young said. “What drew me to Safety Town from the very beginning was what it represented on a larger level: childhood, public trust, civic imagination and the fragile social fabric connecting American communities. At a moment when conversations surrounding safety, loneliness, public life and human connection have become increasingly urgent, the themes emerging from this world feel startlingly contemporary.
“The deeper we traveled into it, the more the film began revealing unexpected questions about how societies teach trust, independence, empathy and coexistence.”
The film was shot across the United States with children, families, educators, volunteers, city officials, police, firefighters and multi-generational communities tied to Safety Town’s history. The production also assembled nearly a century of archival material, including rare photographs, films, audio recordings, organizational records and educational media documenting how American ideas about childhood, safety and community have changed.
“For something like this to run on word of mouth for 90 years,” Historical Advisor Douglas Brinkley said, “can anything like this happen again in America?”
As the film enters its final phase, the team is opening conversations with partners, institutions, Safety Town alumni and cultural organizations connected to the program. To learn more, share a story or connect with the team, visit thesafetytownmovie.com.
Contact Lou Whitmire at 419-521-7223. She can be reached on X at @LWhitmir.
This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Documentary tells story of Mansfield Police Safety Town
Reporting by Lou Whitmire, Mansfield News Journal / Mansfield News Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Lou Whitmire, Mansfield News Journal | USA TODAY Network
