Monroe County is a predominately rural area in which youth are exposed to a variety of conditions that could lead to unsafe conditions in the home, at school, or on the farm.   Educating youth how to avoid an accident or what to do in an emergency was the goal of the Monroe County 4-H Progressive Agriculture Safety Day.   Monroe County 4-H partnered with the Progressive Agriculture Safety program and the Monroe County Family Resource Center to host a safety day for all 5^th grade students.  154 youth participated in seven different sessions: fire safety, drug safety, firearm safety, animal safety, first aide, and general agriculture safety.   Youth also participated in group sessions on weather safety with a special emphasis on flash flooding, acceptance and inclusion, and how to develop a family evacuation plan.

Youth were asked to verbally describe, or write one idea they learned at Safety Day.   Responses included:  never touch a gun unless you are planning to shoot and if you do want to shoot it, never point it at a person!  Drugs can cause a lot of bad things inside your body and make you do a lot of silly things.  Turn around don’t drown is real!  A tornado warning means that you need to go to a safe place.  Don’t ever throw water on a grease fire!  From the responses, it was evident that they youth learned in each session and that valuable safety information was presented.