Chico 911 Safety Pals

Program 1: The Chico Firefighters Association Local 2734’s Adopt A Family Christmas Toy and Food Basket Program. Our Christmas program adopts local, deserving low income children that are referred to our program by advocates who work with low income families. In our 2014 Adopt A Family Christmas program, we adopted 116 local Chico low income children and their families. Our Adopt A Family program raises funds to purchase toys, new coats, school supplies, turkeys, canned food and Christmas Safety Stockings that are filled with smoke alarms, smoke alarm batteries & Fire Prevention and Life Safety educational materials. In addition to the items purchased with the funds raised, we host Giving Trees at several businesses, and hold canned food drives at schools, and at a church. Our Chico Firefighters Assoc. purchases the majority of the Christmas gifts, as well as collects all the donated items. Each gift is wrapped and is labeled for the recipient. We prepare food baskets filled with Turkeys and canned or boxed food. The Christmas Gifts, Turkeys and food basket are delivered personally to each family’s home by off duty Chico Firefighters and local program volunteers. While we are at the homes, our Firefighters test all smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, and replace batteries if they are found to be non-operational to increase the safety of the home. We have hosted the Adopt A Family program for the past 20 years. Program 2: The City of Chico 9-1-1 Safety PALS Program (as part of the Ray Head Fund): The purpose of our City of Chico 9-1-1 Safety PALS Program is to put on Fire Prevention and Life Safety educational skits and presentations for children to increase their knowledge about Fire Prevention and Life Safety. The goal of the Fire Prevention and Life Safety educational program is to increase a child’s awareness of safety risks within their home or out in the community, and help them to avoid injury or death. Our programs are put on at schools and community events at no charge to the participants. Funds pay for educational hand out materials, props, costumes, sound systems etc. with the goal of reaching all elementary children within Chico. An end of year program assessment is conducted to measure success, and to re-evaluate goals. The purpose of our program is to put on Fire Prevention and Life Safety educational skits and presentations for children to increase their knowledge about Fire Prevention and Life Safety, with the goal of reducing injuries and deaths through education. Our programs are put on at schools and community events at no charge to the participants. Funds pay for educational hand out materials, props, costumes, sound systems etc. Our goal to reduce to target high risk, vulnerable populations such as children & English as a second language households.