BURRILLVILLE – The Winter Olympics are underway in China this week, with the eyes of the world watching the athletes compete in a wide range of winter sports activities. Athletes from around the world compete for the gold, silver and bronze medals with a very large audience of television viewers glued to their big screens, devices and computers, hoping that their country’s team collects the most medals.
Many of those viewers are children. Kids love to emulate their favorite athletes after watching them perform stunts and tricks on television. This winter is no different than any other time of the year: kids watch these athletes and run outside to try and do the same exact stunts.
This week’s Sunday Cartoon features Codey’s Snow Safety Crew reminding kids about winter sports safety directly related to the sporting events taking place at the Winter Olympics over the next few weeks, specifically, snowboarding and skiing. Kids can easily copy those athletes out in the snow, but not necessarily know how to do those stunts safely.
This Sunday Cartoon can help open the doors to communication between adults and kids about these important safety concerns. It’s no different than when I was asked to create similar kids safety coloring formats and take home product lines for The GRAVITY GAMES hosted in the city of Providence for three straight years: take what the athletes are doing in their chosen sports and convey safety coloring cartoons with messages related to those sports activities and try to help keep kids safer when they attempt to copy their favorite athletes in action. Tens-of-thousands of kids across the states of Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut all got the same message; “Hi Kids! Copying Athletes Sports Activities? Stay Safe!”
Watch for more of these Codey’s Snow Safety Crew winter safety coloring cartoons over the month of February for your kids to color in and learn more about keeping themselves safer out in the winter cold and snow.
Go Team USA!
Jim Weicherding is a Burrillville resident, and the founder and creator of an award-winning traffic safety effort Seasons of Safety. Weicherding contributes kids’ coloring cartoons, which can be printed and used to help parents discuss safety issues with their children. He has a long list of police officers and firefighters in his family and has worked with law enforcement and firefighters in a creative public safety capacity for more than two decades. Jim was also appointed to Children Across America as their events and creative director for their child safety programs initiatives and outreach kids safety campaigns nationwide.