Touch-A-Truck Child Safety and Wellness Event

By Tammy Moore Teague
The United Way of Fort Smith will host the third annual Touch-a-Truck campaign on Thursday, June 21 from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m at Van Buren High School. The event is free, and advocates child safety and wellness.
This event provides kids of all ages with the opportunity to see, touch, and explore life-size vehicles and interact with community support leaders like police officers, fireman, construction workers, military personnel and many more!  Vehicles you can expect to see include construction and farm equipment, safety and transportation vehicles, motorcycles, emergency vehicles, Air Evac Helicopter and military vehicles. The Army National Guard will provide an obstacle course and Crawford County Sheriff’s Department will have their SWAT vehicle. A few new participants for 2018 are the Crawford County Mounted Patrol, Arkansas State Police K9 Unit and Hiland Dairy.
In addition to equipment and vehicles, local businesses will provide hotdogs, chips, drinks and popsicles. The event also serves an educational value on top of being great entertainment for the kids. There will be several tables set up with literature available on a wide variety of child safety and wellness topics. Community Dental Clinic and Kidz Choice Dental will have information on dental health, Med Express will have information on sports physicals, Donald W. Reynolds Cancer Support House will have information on skin care in the sun, and Arkansas Valley Electric will have information on electrical hazards. This is only a partial list of those who are participating in the event.
Touch-A-Truck is exclusively designed with children in mind; although, big kids enjoy the experience just as much.  It’s an event that gives kids an opportunity to see trucks and vehicles up close and from the inside; something they might not otherwise ever have the chance to do.  We encourage parents, Boys and Girls Clubs, preschool programs, Mother’s Day Out groups, daycares and church groups to bring their children out for a great day of fun and learning!
Vehicles, food items, information and door prizes will be provided by the following:

In the case of inclement weather, follow United Way of Fort Smith’s Facebook page.