THE GREAT SAFETY ADVENTURE® TRAVELING HOME SAFETY EXHIBIT KICKS OFF TENTH ANNIVERSARY TOUR

Home Safety Council® and Lowe’s Bring Award-Winning “Field Trip on Wheels” To Your Neighborhood

The national nonprofit Home Safety Council is launching the tenth anniversary tour of its award-winning traveling home safety exhibit – The Great Safety Adventure. In an effort to create safer homes across America, the interactive “field trip on wheels” has been touring the country since 1999 stopping at elementary schools and Lowe’s stores in local communities to bring valuable home safety lessons to life for more than one million parents and children.

Created by the Home Safety Council and sponsored by Lowe’s, The Great Safety Adventure is roughly the size of a small house and unfolds from a semi-tractor trailer truck to form a 1,000 square foot animated home. A team of trained home safety experts called “Safety Rangers” and the Home Safety Council’s mascot, Rover the Home Safety Hound, lead The Great Safety Adventure across the country to educate children and their families about home safety and help prevent home related injuries that result in 20,000 deaths and 21 million medical visits annually*.

“Keeping our nation’s families safe begins in the home. And what better way to reach families and inspire change than through children,” says Meri-K Appy, president of the Home Safety Council. “By visiting schools across the county, The Great Safety Adventure teaches important home safety lessons to receptive young minds. The program encourages children to take the lessons they learn at school home to their parents as a way to promote the whole family working together to make safety improvements at home.”

Research Underscores Need for Home Safety Education
Home Safety Council research shows that more than 2,000 children suffer a fatal home injury each year and an additional 3.4 million children are treated in hospital emergency departments annually for nonfatal home injuries*, making unintentional injury the leading cause of death for children ages 1-15 in the United States.

In response to these staggering statistics, the Home Safety Council launched The Great Safety Adventure in 1999 as a way to deliver home safety messages to children and parents in a fun and interactive way. Lowe’s is the founding sponsor of the Home Safety Council and proud supporter of The Great Safety Adventure. Now celebrating its tenth anniversary on the road, The Great Safety Adventure has reached more than one million children and family members with hands-on home safety messages.

The Great Safety Adventure’s nearly 1,000 square foot animated learning space teaches kids the safety practices needed to help prevent the five leading causes of home injury: (1) falls; (2) poisoning; (3) fires and burns; (4) choking and suffocation and (5) drowning.

Inside The Great Safety Adventure
After entering the oversized front door and gathering in the living room, the children begin their tour as “safety rangers-in-training” and are on the lookout to identify common home dangers such as toys and games left on the stairs; poisonous cleaning supplies in easy-to-reach cabinets; protruding pot handles on the stove; and unattended electrical appliances near water.

Equipped with flashlights, the “safety rangers-in-training” are led on a room-by-room tour of the interactive home and taught to shine their lights and recite the phrase – “Code Red Rover, Grown Up Come Over” – when they spot a home danger. The phrase emphasizes to children the importance of calling a grown up over to help correct home hazards rather than trying to fix the problem themselves.

The adventure ends in Rover’s bedroom, where Rover and the Safety Ranger team work to prepare children for a fire emergency. The kids learn the importance of having working smoke alarms and planning and practicing a family fire escape plan. After the “safety rangers-in-training” master fire safety basics, they participate in a simulated fire emergency where artificial smoke fills the room and they must “Get Low and Go” – crawling beneath the smoke and escaping to a designated meeting place outside. When they are gathered safely outside, the children are named official “Safety Rangers” and encouraged to share Rover’s safety messages with friends and family.

The Home Safety Council also delivers The Great Safety Adventure’s safety advice virtually through www.homesafetycouncil.org and www.CodeRedRover.org. By visiting the Web sites, families can navigate through interactive home safety games, activities, checklists and tips in English and Spanish. Featuring Rover, the Home Safety Hound, the award-winning Web sites expand The Great Safety Adventure’s reach beyond the physical exhibit with home safety lessons that teachers can share in the classroom and children can access at home.

*State of Home Safety in America ™ report, Home Safety Council (2004).