BURRILLVILLE – It’s Easter Sunday. Family and friends are gathering together for Easter dinners across the area and nationwide celebrating the holiday together. With a beautiful day forecasted for this Easter Sunday, here in this state and region, there will more than likely be plenty of get togethers in apartments and homes with quite a few people joining in the festivities. Ham in the oven. Pots and pans filled with delicious side dishes and children playing everywhere.
It’s especially important on holidays such as Easter to remind everyone the importance of keeping kids at least three feet away from hot stoves. This week’s Sunday kids safety coloring cartoon features the popular Fearless Dino Protector Squad firefighter dinosaur cartoon characters reminding children to avoid hot stoves. Parents should remember to keep pot and pan handles turned in towards the dials and settings on top of the stove to avoid spills and potential burns. Do not wear long loose sleeve clothing, bathrobes or wristbands that can caught on those pot and pan handles and potentially catch on fire. Always keep a fire extinguisher near any stoves and make sure that your smoke alarms are working properly. If memory serves me well, those smoke alarms will be sounding off near your kitchen anyway, from all of the steam and heat caused by the cooking. The safest place for children to be playing, while cooking holiday dinners, is in another room and away from the kitchen. If for some reason, a child wants to help out in the kitchen, they should always remain at least three feet away from hot stoves. You don’t want to spend Easter Sunday in an ER because a child was unintentionally scalded and burned by a hot stove, pots and pans and possibly the food being cooked for dinner. You want to spend the holiday with your family and friends. Let foods cool before eating to avoid burning tongues, lips and mouthes. Cooking safety starts with you!
Enjoy the day. Have a safe and happy Easter Sunday!
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.
