With October being Crime Prevention Month, it’s no surprise that the main theme of the annual 2009 Matthew C. Perry Fall Festival here was safety through fun.
Children and their families swarmed the M.C. Perry soccer field Oct. 16, running from booth to booth and socializing.
“(The purpose of the event) was to provide a fun-filled, inexpensive, family-orientated evening while promoting a sense of community, both school wide and station wide. The purpose (was) also to raise money for purchasing materials and supplies for M.C. Perry Elementary School,” said Cindy Miller, Parent Teacher Organization president here and one of the event coordinators.
Tickets were sold to the participants at four for a dollar.
“We are still finalizing our expenses (and) income, but we expected to raise a couple thousand dollars for the school,” said Miller.
There were food booths, fingernail painting, temporary tattoos, duck-pond games, fishing, golfing, basketball, bounce houses and several other activities.
“Playing at the fall festival, the bounce house is the best thing to do,” said Kameren Johnson, an 8-year-old fourth grader at M.C. Perry.
Even though the volunteers running the bounce houses wanted the children to have fun, they still had to make sure they were safe, so they instructed the children on some of the things they couldn’t do while inside.
“The people that let us go inside said we can’t flip,” said Johnson. “It’s not really that much fun jumping in a bounce house without flipping. The only thing I did was jumping turning around, spinning, just leaping and diving.”
Special guests Sparky the fire dog, McGruff the crime dog and Daren the Drug Abuse Resistance Education lion were also present at the festival, patrolling the soccer field while greeting and taking photographs with the children.
The Provost Marshal’s Office here set up their mobile command post for the children to tour and a booth to make fingerprint kits.
The Aircraft Rescue Firefighters here set up a fire truck for the children to explore and allowed the children to dress up in proximity firefighting suits and operate a fire hose. The local Iwakuni firefighters also set up a booth with fire-safety information. The variety of activities at the festival allowed the children to have fun while learning about safety firsthand.
For information on other safety-related events scheduled to take place throughout the month of October, contact the Provost Marshal’s Office at 253-3303.
“The PTO would like to thank everyone who came out to support M.C. Perry Elementary School and to all of the volunteers for helping to produce a successful fall festival,” said Miller.