On Monday, Feb 12 the Foundation turned over to the students of Stevenson Middle School 60 visual smoke alarms. If you have been following the KENS 5 TV links, the kids put out a request for information and aid. One local church group managed to gather funds to purchase several of these units. The Foundation got in contact with SA school officials, and set up the program. Also viewing the first video, the division fire chief stated that no one has ever donated one of these alarms. We immediately sent out a half a dozen. Another 35 of these alarms were handed over to a community service group that works with the disabled and hearing impaired in the area.
The SA fire dept will be installing these units in the student’s homes, while doing this, they also will be checking the dwelling for operating smoke alarms. If regular smoke alarms require a battery they will replace it, if the home does not have an functional alarm, they will install them as required. Fire Chief Randy Jenkins will be heading up this part of the project.
Since Thanksgiving weekend, there have been 10 fire fatalities, in each case working smoke alarms were not present. A simple little safety device, not functioning or present, take it for granted and you might not live to regret it.
With daylight savings time coming up in a few days, check your units, replace the batteries.
Members of DRS and the Governor’s Office have been in contact with us. Several other plans for assistance and aid have been discussed and a few more Texas projects are in the early stages of planning.
Once a release is obtained from the school district, I will post of a few of the pictures of the event. The six original alarms supplied to the fire dept were installed within a few days of arrival, we backed them up with another six. As I stated earlier this is a work in progress. The kids will be able to sleep with some of the fear factor removed.
Paul