We held our annual fall Fire & Police Open House on Saturday. It was a beautiful autumn day in Eden Prairie. Sunny and 70. Absolutely perfect. Here are some photos I snapped of the event.
The open house is designed to appeal to kids, and their parents. It’s our way of sharing our appreciation to the community for the many resources they have given to us.
This is one of our Assistant Fire Chiefs, Tom Schmitz, talking to a citizen about the latest innovations in fire/rescue equipment.
Sgt. Jamie Good worked at a table that explained the dangers of drunk and impaired driving. He had tools at his table that simulate varying levels of intoxication. In the business, they call them “drunk goggles”. I tried them out and tried to walk the line at .05%, .10%, and .20% simulated levels of blood alcohol content. Ouch. Couldn’t do it. Don’t drive drunk.
One of the biggest draws at the Open House is the chance to ride a Fire Truck. See the line? This was a short line. With the sirens and those charming firefighters, it’s hard to resist.
We put our Open House together with many local partners from the public and private sectors. Here’s a shot of a volunteer from our local Home Depot store. Home Depot hosted a display where they helped kids build their own wooden fire trucks. It was very popular.
And, finally, it’s my annual photo of me and McGruff The Crime Dog. Did you know McGruff is a girl dog? Not many people do.
A lot of people from our Police and Fire Departments give up their Saturday to put on the Open House. And you know something impressive about that: There’s no arm twisting involved. Our police officers and fire fighters understand how important it is to have the support of the community. Community trust in our public safety personnel and systems is how we’re able to police (verb) a community of 60,000 people with only 90 police officers. It’s how we’re able to provide reliable professional fire and rescue services with a large number of paid on-call volunteer fire fighters.
So, thanks to the Police and Fire folks for putting on a great event on Saturday. And thanks to our citizens that joined us. We appreciate your support.
