Building a Village to Raise a Child

Recall the proverb that says it takes a village to raise a child. For the Toronto Insurance Conference (TIC) and the York Regional Police Department, the saying is literally true in regards to the Community Safety Village of York Region – a Cdn$4.6-million, six-acre facility located in the Bruce’s Mill Conservation Area north of Toronto.

Seven years in development, the Community Safety Village of York Region opened in May 2005. Effectively a state-of-the art “visual aid,” the outdoor mini-village is a place where children learn life-saving pedestrian safety rules as they walk, bicycle, or drive one of 30 miniature, electric-powered cars along the streets of the village and follow traffic lights and railway crossings.

“We did built [the York Region village] a lot bigger than most,” York Regional Police Staff Sergeant Rodney Sine said during a recent tour of the facility. “This is the biggest in the province. We have three full-size classrooms, our village is bigger, our buildings are bigger – we wanted an interactive village. You’ll see that those [buildings] are interactive and that’s what we wanted to do.”

York Region police staff, community volunteers and regional council representatives formed a volunteer board in 1997 to design, build, and fundraise the Community Safety Village of York Region, which is one of the largest operating Safety Villages in North America. The York Region facility includes a 10,000-square-foot, award-winning Learning Centre. Between 25,000 and 30,000 children are projected to pass through the centre during its first year of operation.

Inside, a Fire Safety House simulates the smoke of a burning building, so that children learn the value of fire detectors and how to escape a burning home or apartment building. A model kitchen, bedroom and bathroom teach children to identify and avoid such common hazards such as burning elements, poisons, pills in the medicine chest, among others.

Most recently, the village has started offering lessons in the safe use of the Internet and online chat-lines, through which adults have lured children into dangerous and harmful situations. In addition, children – particularly in Grades 7 and 8 – can benefit from lessons about ‘Instant Messenger’ bullying and online peer pressure.

Walk into the main building, which can accommodate up to 250 young students, and the lettering that appears in the glass over top of one of the classrooms summarizes the purpose of the village and its method of instruction: “Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me and I will understand.”

“The Toronto Insurance Conference got involved because of the fact that it’s safety, risk management and prevention,” KRG Insurance Brokers president and COO Paul Martin noted, adding that the group decided to get involved with the project as long ago as December 2004.

Martin became aware of the project because he lives in the area and because he met with former Toronto Maple Leaf Wendell Clark, who was a key figure in the campaign to promote the village to the public.

The TIC recently donated $20,000 to the Community Safety Village from proceeds raised from its 2005 Black Tie dinner. It raised an additional $50,000 from each TIC member donating $2,500 to the Community Safety Village effort, as well as a number of other fundraisers held in 2005. The money went towards the purchase of a 25-foot-by-15-foot building located on one of the village’s outdoor streets.

The obvious link between insurance and preventative safety drew the attention of the TIC to the project, TIC past president Justin MacGregor says. “We wanted to find something that would tie into the Black Tie dinner,” he says. “It was the 50th Black Tie and we wanted to do something for the local community. We wanted to do something different.

“We looked at a bunch of different, very good organizations, but when we looked at the Community Safety Village, the correlation with what we do on a day-to-day basis was so remarkable, we said: ‘That’s got to be it.'”

In addition to the TIC building, 22 buildings line the village’s streets. They include a police station (complete with a miniature jail), a fire station, in which children can try on a firefighter’s gear, and a hydro station where children can learn about electrical safety and hazards.

An outside phone booth allows children to simulate a 911 call, so they know what to expect should they have to call in an emergency situation. Traffic lights are rigged with actual sounds, so that people with visual disabilities can practice how to cross across streets safely.

The TIC insurance broker’s building in the village will soon be refurbished and include a number of safety items that children can play with while they learn about insurance.

TIC president Brenda Rose, the vice president of Firstbrook, Cassie & Anderson Ltd., is working on the interior design of the building. She says the building will ultimately house interactive items associated with general safety – such as life preservers, alarm keypads, smoke detectors and safety belts. A coloring book, which children can take away with them, is also in the planning stages, she said. All told, by the time the interior fixtures are added to the TIC building, the organization will have donated between $75,000 and $80,000 to the project.

And what, exactly, will children between Grades 1 and 5 learn about insurance? “Trying to communicate the concept of insurance to Grades 1, 2 and 3 is real tough,” MacGregor says. “We are trying to find a way to communicate so that they will make some connection. It will be something very basic.”

“When something bad happens, insurance brokers help you to get it fixed,” Rose adds, by way of an example. “It’s a very simplistic thing.”

The Community Safety Village of North York – located near Highway 404, about 20 minutes north of Toronto – is designed to be a permanent fixture of the landscape. Located on the 600-acre grounds of the Bruce’s Mill Conservation Area, the village has signed two consecutive 20-year leases, meaning the village will be at the property for the next 40 years. The village is still selling items to pay for its construction, which architects originally projected at $2.8 million. The final construction total was 54% over-budget and fundraisers are still hoping to raise $800,000 to cover off the additional costs.

Many items are still available for purchase. Among them:

Four additional building sites – at $52,000 each, the buildings can be used to promote the company name.

Two small street names – for $10,000, a company can purchase and display their company name on one of the small street lanes within the village

One street crescent name – a $10,000 donation will get a company’s name on one of the crescent streets in the village

Fire educator’s classroom – For $100,000, the donor’s name will be placed on a large bronze plaque outside the classroom for the next 20 years.

The concept of the Community Safety Village is not new, Sine notes. The original safety village was built in Halton Region in 1987. There are also community safety villages now in the Durham (1992) and Peel (1993) regions, as well as in Waterloo, London, Ottawa and Windsor. In the latter four cities, as in the North York region, the police and fire departments co-operated to help build and teach at the villages. Windsor’s village includes the participation of the area’s Emergency Medical Services (EMS).

The concept includes seemingly limitless possibilities for role-playing and training scenarios. Last Halloween, police used the village to teach children how to trick or treat safely. During March break, 1,000 children are anticipated to visit the facility each day as part of a maple syrup gathering. Over the summer, camps will be offered that allow children to explore both the village and the conservation area.

TCIC is planning to sponsor a four-day camp for kids at Bruce’s Mill and the Community Safety Village of York Region on behalf of th e Children’s Aid society. The goal is to bring inner-city kids and their foster parents up to the village. At this time, there isn’t a Safety Community Village within Toronto city limits.

The various activities available at the York Region safety village are tailor-made for young brokers to volunteer in making their communities safe, MacGregor said. He notes the Insurance Brokers Association of Canada (IBAC) is working on developing its Young Broker Network (YBN).

Education is the focus of the IBAC YBN. There are plans in the works to have YBN volunteers help during the TIC camp week at Bruce’s Mill/Community Safety Village.