SAFETY VILLAGE TEACHES RULES OF THE ROAD

Eric Smith, Travis Bowman, and Amber Borgfield all felt the same way: the best part of Safety Village came with riding the bicycles.

"It was fun stopping at the (traffic) light and then going when the light turned green," said Eric, 6.

"It was kind of hard. Sometimes my bike was a little too fast and suddenly the light turned red, and then sometimes I had to back up to the line."

The three children, all of Cape Girardeau, are students at the Montessori School here who are learning traffic safety at the village this week. Classes at the village, located at the former tennis courts in Missouri Park, began Monday.

Safety Village is designed for children 5 to 8 years of age and is a project of the Cape Girardeau County Community Traffic Safety Program. Traffic safety is taught to the children through the use of miniature traffic lights, pedestrian crossing lights, signs, intersecting roadways, and crosswalks. The classes are taught by Cape Girardeau Police Officer Jeannie Dailey.

Program sessions run two weeks Monday through Thursday and cost $10. Each class meeting is 2 hours, for a total program of 20 hours. The children's time is evenly split between Safety Village and related classroom work.

Program Coordinator Sharee Galnore said two groups of about 10 students learned traffic safety at the village Monday. The first group which included Eric, Travis, Amber and two other Montessori students made up the morning class from 9 to 11:30 a.m., she said. The second group was instructed from 12:30 to 3 p.m.

The bikes, the stop signs, and "all that" turned out to be Amber's favorite part of the village, although she said the tasks required were pretty easy. Nevertheless, she said she learned "a little bit."

Asked what she had learned, the 8-year-old responded: "I learned how to ride a bicycle with a helmet. I never rode one like that."

Travis, 6, said he found the bike riding fun. But he also said: "The police officer girl, she taught us about signs and stuff, and I liked that too."

Montessori's director, Janie Meyer, said the school had registered the five students for Safety Village.

She said, "I think it's very important that the kids learn safety measures. Here we can talk (about safety) all the time, but here they have a chance to actually practice."

Organized classes at Safety Village will run for six weeks. After that, said Galnore, the traffic safety program will work with community organizations to make the site available for safety activities, such as bicycle rodeos.

Galnore said the classes are going great.

"The program has begun and we're going to enter into our second phase, which will be to get buildings started for the site. (We're going) to replicate buildings in the community, such as the fire station, the police station, a bank. Sort of like a generic representation of the buildings you would find in any community," she said.

The buildings will be developed over the next several months, she said.

Children can still be registered for Safety Village. The sessions have about a 30 percent vacancy rate, according to Galnore. Galnore can be reached at 335-7908.

Safety Village is the result of community effort in the form of donated time, money and material from several businesses, organizations and individuals. The village was also made possible through funding from the Missouri Department of Public Safety.

A ribbon cutting ceremony for Safety Village will be held Monday at 10:30 a.m., said Galnore.