|
Kiwanis Club of Papatoetoe builds a Fire Safety House |
|
|
Kiwanis Club of Papatoetoe builds a Fire Safety House |
Back in March of 2002, George Stephens, Fire Safety Officer for the Manukau Fire Station, and some of the Manukau firemen bought the "Wendy House" to the Teddy's Day Out at Allenby Park that was organised by the Manukau Kiwanis Club. The children had a lot of fun learning about fire safety and thought the colourful dolls house on wheels with smoke billowing out it and smoke detector going off was neat and so did Joyce Young. George told her that they would like another one because the demand to have it at venues was so great and she went home with an great idea for a project for the club. A committee was formed and in consultation with George plans were draw up and quotes obtained. Applications for funding were sent out and as a result NZ$9,100 was raised. The trailer part was completed in December of last year (2002). Steady progress was made on the house throughout this year (2003) with completion at the end of November. There were 520 hours put in by club members, family and workmates with Dave and Joyce Young putting in 330 of those hours.
It was really amazing how the business community got in behind this project with lots of donated materials, labour and big discounts. The work was always completed in good time with excellent workmanship. We could not have achieved this project without their help. We estimate the value of the unit to be about NZ$22,000, which includes our labour. We had raised NZ$9,100.
The house is to be used by the New Zealand Fire Service and taken to venues to educate children on fire safety and how to get out of a house in the event of a fire. It has a smoke maker, smoke detector, TV, DVD, Video and stereo.
We had the presentation to the New Zealand Fire Service on Saturday, the 6th of December at the new Papatoetoe Fire Station in Lambie Drive, Manukau. Our guests included the Member of Parliament for Manukau East, Ross Robinson, the Assistant Regional Manager for the Auckland Region of the New Zealand Fire Service, Cliff Mears, Lt. Governor for Division 10 of Kiwanis International, Ernie Hough, Chairman of the Papatoetoe Community Board, Gary Troupe, some of our Sponsors, the Burns Support group, children and parents from Puhinui Primary school, members from Kiwanis clubs of Manukau, Waiau Pa Clarks Beach, Drury and Howick and of course those all important wives and partners. The ladies from the Manukau club made the afternoon tea and the children were taken through the house and given a lesson in fire safety after the presentation.
We have had two articles in the local paper, one on the 12th of November, 2002 in the Manukau Courier, the other on the 2nd of July, 2003 in the Papatoetoe and Otahuhu Week. We had a cameraman from TV1 at the presentation and had a snippet on TV1 6:00 PM news on the 6th of December at the end in the weather section.
Kiwanis NZSP Division One home page / New Zealand - South Pacific District home page