BIKE SMART PROGRAM SET FOR SATURDAY

More children die each year from unintentional injuries than all childhood diseases combined.

The Cape Girardeau Area Safe Kids Coalition is out to change that.

As part of the group's community education efforts, it will hold a Bike Smart program Saturday in the Southeast Missouri Hospital parking garage from 8 to noon, children and their caregivers can enjoy face-painting, clowns and games while learning bicycle safety.

In addition, the first 100 preregistered children will receive bicycle helmets.

Southeast Hospital, St. Francis Medical Center, KBSI, the Community Traffic Safety Program and the Cape Girardeau Police Department are sponsors.

Lynn Ware, a pediatric technician at Southeast, is the Safe Kids program coordinator. She and coalition members visited public and parochial fourth-grade classrooms Monday and Tuesday to give students family safety checklists.

The students were to take them home, fill them out with their parents and return them to their teachers. Classes with 100 percent participation will be eligible to win a free bicycle helmet, to be given away in a classroom drawing.