Delia and Morrin School students had a fun way to learn about fire safety last Friday.
    Mary Lambert educates through music and on Friday, October 4, she was in Delia School in the morning, and then in Morrin School in the afternoon to deliver Sing Out  Fire Safety, a fun and musical show with an important message at its heart.

Mary Lambert was helped by Morrin School students last Friday delivering Sing Out Fire Safety, a musical peformance with fire safety as its key message. Starland FCSS brought the production to Delia School and Morrin School.

    Lambert is a Juno award winning recording artist based out of Calmar.  She developed the program in 1999 with a fire chief of the Township Of Beckwith in Ontario. Since then, it has been delivered to hundreds of students across the country. And it has made a difference.
    “One true story I share is of a young girl who saved her dad from being badly burned,” said Lambert. “He didn’t know what to do and she learned what to do from one of these shows.”
    According to her web site, Mary takes her audience through many aspects of fire prevention and fire safety during this interactive musical performance. Children will learn more about what firefighters do, and many important fire safety tips, including the importance of smoke detectors and what to do when they go off.
    The show was brought to the students by Starland FCSS and was requested by the Munson Fire Department, and came on the cusp of National Fire Prevention Week.
Diana Rowe, Starland FCSS coordinator said she learned of Mary Lambert’s production after seeing a show on literacy in Drumheller last year.
     The performance was brought to elementary aged students at Delia and Morrin. Members of the area fire departments participated in the performance, as did students.
    ‘I have lots of different themed shows for schools, but I love this one because it has a really important message,” said Lambert.

    Two Morrin School students are making a difference in their community by helping to change attitudes about drinking and driving.
    The Mail reported in its  April 17 edition that Kyle Montgomery and Brittany Cawiezel had been selected to serve as youth ambassadors  representing Alberta  for a workshop presented by Parachute Canada on a new teen driver safety project. They also attended the Youth Against Impaired Driving Conference. These were in Oakville Ontario.
    From these experiences, they came home with the tools needed to make their community safer.
    The two are members of the Morrin School SADD group, and now are founders of Project Gearshift in Alberta. Project Gearshift grew out of the teen driver safety workshop.
    “We sort of created it. There are two Alberta ambassadors, Brittany and myself,” said Kyle. “There are two from Ontario and two from New Brunswick.”
    “We met in Ontario and created the group,” said Brittany.
    Last week the group had its inaugural Community Leader Meeting to begin planning how it would address problems of drinking and driving.
    “Kyle and I were able to pick which issues we wanted to bring back to our community, so we picked drinking and driving,” said Brittany. “We wanted to make a difference.”
    On Tuesday, September 24 their meeting was well attended and include representatives from the RCMP, Morrin School, Starland County Alberta Transportation, Commercial Vehicle Enforcement, Alberta Health  services and EMS.
    “We wanted to make it community based, and we are getting signs for the community called “RID” Report Impaired Drivers,” said Brittany. “We have a big one we are putting out at the school.”
    The small signs will be mounted to existing traffic signs for high visibility.
     Brittany said that there is power when the message comes from younger people. Both adults and youth take notice.

Morrin School students Kyle Montgomery, left, and Brittany Cawiezel are heading up Project Gearshift to spread awareness of impaired driving in the community.