BURRILLVILLE – This past week and the recent Memorial Day weekend were extremely busy for Buckleupallofus and his summer season child passenger safety, kids in hot cars and vehicle entrapment messages at parades and car shows. Bucky, as children often like to call him, was the star attraction at events over the weekend.
Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial start of summer, and this summer season appears to be a very busy season for Bucky. Bucky launched his kids season of safety campaign with a big televised parade in the town of Avon, Mass. on Saturday, May 27. The Avon VFW hosted a BBQ car show after the parade for everyone attending. Lynch Towing from Brockton, Mass. provided Bucky parade transportation. Children Across America volunteers and staff passed out a lot of Bucky safety coloring posters, fridge magnets and stickers to hundreds of kids during and after the parade.
A weekend full of car shows generated the distribution of these safety handout items to hundreds of other children featuring Bucky and cool classic cars, trucks and muscle cars for them to color in. Bucky attends more than 100 car shows annually across the region while passing out tens-of-thousands of traffic and vehicle safety coloring formats and products geared to help keep kids safer. The Bucky giant inflatable balloon is the star attraction at these popular events, car shows and parades. New England police and fire departments and community leaders have started reaching out, inviting Bucky showcases at their community family events and car shows this summer and fall, hoping he has open dates on the days of their planned venues. If there were ten more Bucky giant balloons, it would still be difficult to meet the demand for showcase appearances. He has actually appeared in three events on a single weekend day more often than you would think. Adding all of the live radio show broadcasts and podcasts, grade schools, daycares, libraries, family clinics, malls, shopping plazas, movie cinemas, festivals, fairs, retailers, auto dealerships and community centers appearances already on the schedule, along with car shows, trying to keep up with demand is challenging.
Car show appearances have been the predominant Bucky audience over the years, but he has evolved into something much bigger, and is currently attracting a much larger range of audiences on a grander scale. Car shows have, and always will be, Bucky’s primary event focus. Kids arrive and leave in vehicles at all of Bucky events. Keeping them safer in those vehicles is his mission. Charity car shows have always been a Bucky showcase catalyst for a decade and that is not ending anytime soon. Bucky attends these events absolutely free of any costs to help those charities in need.
Buckleupallofus, everyone. Have a safe cruisin’ season! Kids can even write the words: “Boost up! Buckle up!” above the cool classic cars on their very own Bucky Cruisin’ Coloring Poster featured as this Sunday’s Cartoon.
Jim Weicherding is a Burrillville resident, and the founder and creator of an award-winning traffic safety effort Seasons of Safety. Weicherding contributes kids’ coloring cartoons, which can be printed and used to help parents discuss safety issues with their children. He has a long list of police officers and firefighters in his family and has worked with law enforcement and firefighters in a creative public safety capacity for more than two decades. Jim was also appointed to Children Across America as their events and creative director for their child safety programs initiatives and outreach kids safety campaigns nationwide.
