Great Safety Adventure rolls into town

The Great American Adventure tour manager Joe Straughan shows kids the dangers of potential burns from a hot pot handle sticking out. The kids used flashlights to identify dangers in the kitchen like open cabinet doors and playing near a hot stove.


(left to right) Bonita Springs Elementary school kindergarteners Miles Alceus and Brennan Engel
crawl out of The Great Safety Adventure Wednesday during a practice fire drill. The smoke filled
room smelled like pancake syrup.


Dubbed “the coolest field trip on wheels” by its tour manager, the Great Safety Adventure trailer rolled into Bonita Springs on Wednesday to teach school-age children about home safety.

The trailer unfolds to form a 1,000-square-foot animated home.

Rover, the nonprofit organization’s mascot, guides children through rooms where hidden dangers can lurk in places such as the living room, kitchen and bedroom.

“We take kids through the house and talk to them about how to identify dangers and alert a grownup,” said Joe Straughan, tour manager of the program created nine years ago. He teaches children about falling, poison, choking and drowning dangers. “We don’t show them to try to fix it themselves and that’s important to avoid injury.”

Preventing injuries is one of the reasons the home visits elementary schools and Lowe’s stores that act as anchor and sponsor for the program.

“The great thing is that we have reached over a million kids, and if we save one life or prevent one hospital visit we are doing our jobs,” said Straughan, as the tour made its first stop in Southwest Florida at Bonita Springs Elementary.

The tour, part of a Home Safety Council Initiative, will include stops in Fort Myers, Lehigh Acres and Cape Coral the next two weeks.

“A lot of times the children learn so much that they go home and share it with their parents,” Straughan said. “Their retention is phenomenal.”

Robert Mecannic, 6, a pupil at Bonita Springs Elementary, was thrilled to practice a fire safety drill at the end of the home tour.

“I liked it a lot. I got to crawl out of the fire and the smoke was cool,” said the kindergartner, who crawled through
pancake-scented smoke.

At the end of this week’s school tours, the trailer will make a stop at the Lowe’s in Estero.