Standing in a mini village on a sunny Friday afternoon, Ryan Beam asked a group of 14 children, “are you ready to be safe?”

Their answer was a resounding “yeah!”

After getting his certificate of achievement, one child said, “oh yeah baby!”

For the last two weeks, about two dozen students attended the Safety Town camp, which is one of the community enrichment classes retained through the Great Falls College MSU Continuing Education and Training department.

Safety Town was created in 1937 by a police officer and a kindergarten teacher after a child was hit by a car and killed while walking to school.

The program started with traffic safety and has since expanded to include other area such as fire, kitchen and bike safety, as well as stranger danger and more. The Great Falls program also includes railroad and farm safety.

The local program is a partnership with Great Falls Public Schools and the National Safety Town Center, and was established with a $10,000 innovation grant through the Great Falls Public Schools Foundation.

Now in it’s second year, coordinator Veronica Griffith is hoping to continue growing the program through community sponsors and hopes to add a second teacher to be able to include more students.

With the grant funding, organizers built their Safety Town village at Skyline School with a roadway course that incorporates stop signs, yield signs, a roundabout, railroad crossing and a one-way.

Throughout the camp, students get to be motorists on tricycles to learn road safety and pedestrians to learn how to safety cross streets.

Parents and families came to Skyline School on June 23 as the students had their graduation celebration and demonstrated to parents some of what they’d learned.

Beam, the program instructor who’s also a teacher at Skyline, asked the students who they ask if they want to plug something into an outlet.

The students responded: mom, dad or a grownup.

Beam asked who can touch a breaker box and the students shouted that only grownups should touch those.

One student loudly announced, “I am not a grownup!”

Once they went through some of what they learned, student hopped on their trikes for a demonstration of traffic and pedestrian safety.

“Good job Patrick, way to stay in your lane,” Griffith told a participant. “Evan, get on the right side of the road.”

Great Falls high school students volunteered during the two week camp and helped the students with their activities.

Griffith said that they’ll hold a grand opening for the program in the spring and she’ll be asking community organizations and businesses for sponsorships to help construct more buildings for the Safety Town village and add a working stop light and railroad crossing.

She said it’s an advantage to have the Safety Town village at Skyline School since the programs there can also use the village yearround though they move the buildings and signs closer to the school during the winter for snow plowing.

Heather Hoyer, GFPS assistant superintendent for secondary education, said the students navigate the roundabout better than some adults and they stop at stop signs.

Griffith said they when they were talking about establishing Safety Town here, she asked her son and he remembered in great detail going through the program as a kid.

The Great Falls program is for students entering kindergarten and Griffith and Beam said it’s also a good transition for them to enter school settings.

Bean told parents during the graduation that it’s a testament to the program the growth the students showed in two weeks.

Many hadn’t been out of the home yet or in a social setting, he said, and they learned a lot of social skills, as well as motor skills since some didn’t know how to pedal the trikes when they started. By the end, most of them were zooming around the Safety Town road network.

Georgina Brown, 4, said emphatically that she had fun at Safety Town.

She said she liked driving the trikes, riding a school bus for the first time and learning her parents phone numbers.

Her parents, Lyla and Andrew Brown, owners of Magpie, said their daughter was jazzed about riding the bus and Lyla Brown said she was happy how many safety details her daughter picked up during the camp.

“It’s been super cool. I’m so stoked they have this,” Lyla Brown said.

Griffith said that Great Falls Fire Rescue came and did a demonstration with little hoses so the kids could practice putting out fires.

They also learned stop drop and roll and get low, get out.

Since Great Falls is an agricultural community, Griffth said Torgerson’s come and do a farm safety session.

Griffith moved back to Great Falls and was working at the college, as well as for the district. She said in her work at the college in the continuing education and training program, she worked with a number of single moms, so she started going to the early childhood coalition meetings to see what resources were available for her students.

She asked about Safety Town early on and the idea was tabled but it came back to the discussion a few years ago and Griffith started looking at options to establish the program.

She said they’re hoping to make the program self-sufficient through community sponsorships and support so they don’t have to rely on grants. She said she’s also hoping to build the scholarship program to cover the fee for students whose families can’t afford it and the bus passes for students that don’t have transportation.

The two week program is three hours per day and they offered a morning and afternoon session.

They can take 20 students per instructor and Griffth said they’re looking to add another instructor to be able to double the number of camp participants.

The students take home an envelope of information daily with details on what they learned that day and discussion prompts for parents.

Griffth said she’s “very proud” of the program and hoping it continues to grow.

“Safety Town is a fun and educational program designed to introduce a variety of safety concepts to children entering Kindergarten. The program will help children develop positive attitudes and values toward safety, which will benefit them throughout their lifetime,” according to the program. “The safety tips they learn will help them avoid dangers and develop safe practices in school and in the community. After they learn, they are empowered to take action by practicing how to prepare for emergencies and sharing their lessons and new knowledge with family and friends. This program readies our youngest neighbors to help create a better prepared community and have a lot of fun in the process. The goal of Safety Town is to reduce accidental injuries and deaths of children through an ongoing community-based safety education program. Our main objective is to create an environment for children to practice what they have learned through constructive play.”