Registration Open for Hinsdale Safety Village

Submitted by the Hinsdale Police Department.

Hinsdale, IL - Safety Village is registering for it’s 34th year of providing an exciting program teaching good safety practices to children.

All children living in Hinsdale/Clarendon Hills or in School District 181 and entering kindergarten or first grade in the fall are eligible for the program.

Registration forms will be available at the Hinsdale Police Department and online. Applicants must mail the form with a long self addressed stamped envelope and a check made out to Safety Village and the signature of the child’s own parent or the form will not be accepted.

The Safety Village is a non-profit organization and is unable to make refunds. It is recommended that a second choice for times be made as registration is limited and spaces do fill immediately. If you do not hear back, your child is enrolled in the session you requested. You will only hear back if there is a problem with your registration.

Safety Village is a miniature town with 16 small buildings including a police and fire station, Memorial Building, school, church, burger stand, ice cream parlor, library, hospital and others. There is a real working railroad crossing, lots of familiar signs and four working traffic lights all built to the scale of a small child. The children delight in driving toy cars throughout the village as they practice the safety rules for motorists, bicycles and pedestrians. Lessons in fire, strangers, railroad, toy, playground and water (54 facets in all) are taught with the aid of songs, stories, robots, puppets, movies, crafts, live play characters as well as teachers, police and fire personnel.

The goal is to help each child prepare for real life situations by allowing them to experience a simulated experience here in Safety Village first. This will hopefully help them remember what to do if they are faced with the real emergency in the future.

Donated by the Katie Satkamp Memorial Foundation to the children of Hinsdale and Clarendon Hills following a fatal school bus accident of the little 7-year-old girl, the program runs each summer for two weeks, Tuesday, June 14 to Friday, June 24, everyday rain or shine, except the week-end from either 8:30-10 a.m. or 10:15-11:45 a.m.

The fee for the two week program is $108 per child and the fee includes a T-shirt. The registration form must be accompanied by a long business (#10) self addressed stamped envelope and a check for registration. The check should be made out to:

Safety Village ($108 per child). The T-shirt will be handed out the first day of Safety Village. Please do not request that your child be placed with another child. The children are placed with others from their home neighborhood and school taking care to balance for age and gender in each small group.

A letter will be sent back in your envelope to your home about June 1 to let you know your child’s “building” home station and more information about the drop off procedure. He or she will have the same teachers for the entire two weeks of the program who will take them to different learning experiences.