A partnership has formed to give the Children’s Safety Village in Chatham-Kent a new lease on life.
The Lower Thames Valley Conservation Authority (LTVCA) and the Municipality of Chatham-Kent are working together to reopen the Safety Village, an interactive teaching facility for elementary school children that focuses on injury prevention.
While located within CM Wilson Conservation Area, which is owned by the conservation authority, the Children’s Safety Village was previously operated independently by a volunteer board of directors, with support from donors and community partnerships.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic severely limited educational events and programming over the past two years.
“Their lease was coming due this past year and so we started discussing things with them and we found out that they were struggling, mainly because of the pandemic,” said Randall VanWagner, manager of conservation lands and services with LTVCA.
The Safety Village was also previously registered as a charity with the Canada Revenue Agency, but its status was revoked in September for failing to file a return.
Going forward, VanWagner said the LTVCA plans to breathe new life into the Safety Village and he’s hopeful to continue working with all previous donors, supporters, and partners.
“Our intention is to work with the community to try and continue to provide education,” said VanWagner. “Many different groups gave to that Safety Village atmosphere and we want to continue that on and we also want to provide programming of our own. So we’re looking at outdoor education programming.”
According to VanWagner, the Safety Village will begin providing safety programming to youth sometime in the new year.
