Cycling festival expands to include Safe Kids Day

Giveaways of expertly fitted bike helmets for children always have been part of the Family Cycling Festival & Criterium. So has information on bicycling safety, such as the use of lights and reflectors.

But for the first time, the cycling event Saturday will include a much broader safety-awareness effort, Safe Kids Day. Presented by the Safe Kids Stanislaus Coalition, the event intermingled with Cycling Festival attractions will include “a multitude of tables and educational opportunities for parents and kids,” said Rena Lepard, injury prevention coordinator in trauma services with Doctors Medical Center.

Lepard, the Safe Kids Stanislaus coordinator, said information available will cover “home safety, fire safety, sports safety, pedestrian safety, child passenger safety – specifically car seats and seat belts – and even laundry room safety, because kids are eating those Tide pods now.”

On average, there are 32 calls a day across the nation of children 5 and younger being exposed to – typically meaning they’ve ingested – detergent capsules, which are growing in popularity for use in washing machines and dishwashers, Lepard said. That’s an 85 percent increase since 2012. Of those 32 calls, one child a day requires hospitalization, she said.

Each Safe Kids Day booth will be interactive, with games for children and parents alike to play. For example, the sports safety booth will test what folks know about staying hydrated. “We’ll put out Gatorade, juice, sports drinks and water and ask people to guess how they rank in effectiveness,” Lepard said. There also will be information on concussions, eating properly and other topics.

The Safe Kids Stanislaus coalition was created in 2012 and works to prevent injuries, the leading cause of death for children in the United States, Lepard said. Its members include Doctors Medical Center; the Ceres Partnership for Healthy Children; Memorial Medical Center; the city of Modesto; Sierra Vista Child & Family Services; the Modesto, Ceres and Turlock police departments; the Stanislaus County Office of Education; the Ceres Fire Department; the California Highway Patrol; Modesto Regional Fire Authority; the Stanislaus County Children and Families Commission; the Parent Resource Center; and Stanislaus Health Services Agency.

Safe Kids Stanislaus is a member of Safe Kids Worldwide, a network of organizations dedicated to preventing injury. For more information, visit safekids.org or call Lepard at (209) 342-3459.

The Family Cycling Festival & Criterium and Safe Kids Day will run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday on I Street between 10th and 12th streets.

This story was originally published May 14, 2015 at 10:36 AM with the headline "Cycling festival expands to include Safe Kids Day."