First responders, community organizations take part in touch-a-truck event
Hundreds of local children enjoyed a fun new take on the classic summer slip ‘n’ slide Thursday afternoon thanks to the Highland View FIre Department, who sprayed a crowd of amassed children from atop their fire truck.
The fire department, along with other local emergency responders, spent the afternoon with CareerSource’s summer leadership camp as part of their annual touch-a-truck event.
According to CareerSource special project coordinator Lianna Sagins, “there are 206 campers from ages 4 to 14 participating in this year’s camp.”
The touch-a-truck event, in which the children got to climb through the different trucks, speak with emergency personnel and get to see first hand how the equipment operated, was organized by CareerSource Gulf Coast as part of their annual summer leadership camp.
Participating in the event were representatives from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, the Highland View Volunteer Fire Department, the Gulf County Sheriff’s Office, the Port St. Joe Police Department and Coastal Towing. Tropical Paradise gave out shaved ice from their food truck.
Even as it began to drizzle, the campers enthusiastically climbed through an ambulance, explored snake skins from the FWC and danced under a shower from a fire hose.
The camp, which is offered free of cost annually by CareerSource, runs from June to August every year. For more information, visit https://careersourcegc.com/events-detail?cNum=49.
Meet the Editor
Wendy Weitzel, The Star’s digital editor, joined the news outlet in August 2021, as a reporter covering primarily Gulf County.
Prior to then, she interned for Oklahoma-based news wire service Gaylord News and for Oklahoma City-based online newspaper NonDoc.com during her four years at the University of Oklahoma, from which she graduated in May with degrees in online journalism and political science.
While at OU, Weitzel was selected as Carnegie-Knight News21 Investigative Fellow among 30 top journalism students from around the country. She also was senior editor managing a 12-person newsroom in coordination with Oklahoma Watch, a non-profit news organization in eastern Oklahoma.