Firehouse Subs Heat up Safety Village

Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation donated $20,000 toward 's fire safety program in a ceremony Thursday. 

The donation to the safety village will go toward construction at the facility as well as the sustainability fund and maintenance of the buildings. 

Second and fourth graders of Cobb County come to the village to learn a large array of safety knowledge from police and fire officers. The facility works to educate students from and as well as private schools and home-school.

"The programs for the kids are all about prevention, all about being interactive, being hands on," county manager David Hankerson said. "We try to teach them community safety through the police department like stranger safety, pool and water safety, neighborhood safety, bicycle, crosswalk, roadway safety. It's things that they and even their parents might not know about day-to-day safe living."

Each year, approximately 20,000 students participate in the on-site safety village program, which has four fire educational officers and two police officers on staff. 

Within the village, real-life scenarios such as indoor fires and roadway and bicycle situations can be simulated.

"It's real," Hankerson added. "All the traffic signals in here, they are operational just like a traffic signal in the community. The kids have little cars that they can drive. It's just amazing."

In a three-hour block of time the facility can bring 240 students through the program. In addition to teaching second and fourth grade students, the educational officers visit kindergarten classes, and the village has programs for adults such as car seat safety.

The village also does pre-testing and post-testing to monitor the effectiveness of their various programs.

"We think the program has been very, very effective," Hankerson noted. "We've been able to reduce the overtime we used to pay going to the schools by 35 plus percent."

Homeland Security also use the facility. "They love it because now they don't have to interfere with the actual community to simulate a disaster," Hankerson said. "They come out here with the replica buildings and the streets instead. They've used it several times already."

Firehouse Subs and others such as Motorola have purchased storefronts of the buildings located on the shockingly accurate replica of Marietta Square.

These funds also go toward the construction of buildings around the grounds. The buildings on the square are used to further the educational experience. The germ and electricity classrooms, for example, are located on the square.

"It's something you have to see to understand," Cobb County Safety Village coordinator Captain Scott Dodson said."It's amazing—the interactivity, the construction, the real-life feel. There aren't words; you really have to see it."

The safety village opened in August of 2009 and is in its third year of operation. Approximately 40,000 students have come through the facility so far.

Firehouse Subs created the non-profit Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation in 2005 with the mission of providing funding, equipment and educational opportunities to aid first-responders. 

Since 2005, Firehouse Subs has donated more that $275,700 to public safety entities in Georgia.