A representative from Saskatchewan Government Insurance (SGI) talks to students from Eston Composite School at the Progressive Agriculture Safety Day being presented by the Eston 4H Club on Oct. 2 at the AGT Community Centre. The SGI rollover simulator and demonstration was enjoyed by students both young and old, a spokesperson says.
By Kenneth Brown
of The Crossroads
Safety at home, work and on the farm is important and a new event has helped to spread the message of safety to students at Eston Composite School (ECS).
A committee of leaders from the Eston 4H Club organized and hosted a Progressive Agriculture Safety Day in the community. All ECS students took part in the event held on Oct. 2 at the AGT Community Centre. A spokesperson for the committee says the safety event was a success.
“I think it went superbly,” said Michelle Brummund, an event organizer and a leader of the Eston 4H Club, recognizing that the students arrived on time and there was a nice flow given the short time frame for each session. “Our presenters were phenomenal.”
[emember_protected for=”2″ custom_msg=’For more on this story, please see this week’s print edition of The Cross Roads.’]
She noted that organizers wanted as many children as possible to attend the event, so they worked with the school to be able to include all of the students. She said her children have attended farm safety events in places such as Leader.
Other farm safety events have been held on weekends and Brummund said she and her fellow organizers realize families are busy, so they wanted to hold the event at a time when they did not have to compete with other activities that occur on weekends such as sports. Planning for the event started in the fall of 2017.
The event featured several sessions, so the students moved from station to station throughout the day. The school’s elementary students from Grade 1 to Grade 6 attended in the morning and the older students from Grade 7 to Grade 12 attended in the afternoon.
Brummund said it worked out nicely for the school because the students were only away from the classroom for half of the day. She said she believes the education that students received was worth the time they spent away from the classroom.
There were seven sessions in total including a Saskatchewan Government Insurance (SGI) rollover demonstration, basic safety information with a local fire official, grain safety, animal safety, electrical safety, respiratory safety and farm equipment safety for items such as PTO shafts. The presenters consisted of both local volunteers and other speakers that had made the trip from Saskatoon or Regina.
Brummund said she hopes conversations about safety are happening at home, but the education students received at the event is valuable because accidents still happen on the farm and in other places. She referred to the grain entrapment deaths on a farm near Burstall in 2015 and a tractor rollover incident at Beechy.
She noted that the messages being shared at the safety event could help to prevent accidents and “if we can save a life, then that’s pretty important.” She said the sessions came about through a workshop two of the event organizers attended in Alberta.
The sessions were based on the lesson plans through the Progressive Agriculture Foundation, Brummund said. The foundation established a Progressive Agriculture Safety Day. There are as many as 15 topics that could have been covered, she said.
Brummund said an initial idea was to bring a combine to the event to teach the students about safety around the machine and blind spots when operating a combine, but that did not work out this time. The SGI rollover demonstration was a highlight for the students, she noted.
The feedback from older students suggested that they were “pleasantly surprised” by the content and what they learned at the event, she said. The session on animal safety included the message of responsible pet ownership.
Students that live on a farm were encouraged in one session to develop a farm safety plan. Brummund said the students that do not live on a farm are likely to end up on a farm, so the education also works for them and the topics were part of a good overall program. She thanked the event’s sponsors and presenters.
Kim Hobbs, the principal at ECS, said Eston is a strong rural community and several of the school’s students have a connection to farms, so it is an important education for everyone in attendance, she said. Everything worked out nicely with the students, she noted.
“They were engaged in it,” Hobbs said of the students, recognizing that the students asked good questions and they understood the connection to the community around them. “It made them think. It made them ask questions.”
The principal said the event helped to teach the students that accidents could be avoided by making the right decisions and it was a good message to share with them. The event also fit with the school’s health curriculum, so it was beneficial, she added.
[/emember_protected] 
