Plenty of projects in the pipeline for busy team at Safe trust

Hannah Shepherd and Di Gleeson of the Central Taranaki Safe Community Trust.

It's been a busy month for Central Taranaki Safe Community Trust (CTSCT) as we are just starting to settle into our projects for the year.

We are in the middle of April Falls, a falls prevention campaign with Masters Mitre 10 where people can get 50 per cent off a range of items in store by filling out a short survey.

We had 55 vouchers used in the first week, and multiple expressions of interest for Neighbourhood Support which is exciting. If you want to join in the April Falls deals, head in store or to our Facebook page www.facebook.com/ctsafect.

Masters Mitre 10 was also the place to be for our Safe Day on Saturday. The focus was on preventing crime with two initiatives.

Safer Plates lets people install an anti-theft screw into licence plates while Safer Tools engraves details onto your tools so they can be easily identified if they are stolen. We couldn't have brought Safe Day together without the help of our awesome Central Taranaki Community Patrol volunteers.

The end of March signalled the end of our 2019 Neighbours Day celebration.

We had an amazing response to our street barbecues, with 22 street parties and around 400 neighbours taking part.

Once again, a big thank you to The Family Butchery for discounting the meat packs for the occasion. I had an awesome time attending each and every party, and look forward to next year's event.

Next month we move onto our next Safe Friends Luncheons, with one at Avon Primary on May 8 and one at Ngaere School on May 20.

Safe Friend Luncheons are our opportunity to engage with our youth, teaching them about farm and rural safety with the help of Subway Stratford, Senior Constable Jono Erwood of the Stratford Police and Blue Light.

Moving into winter, we have a few more projects on the horizon.

Winter Home Safety looks at preventing fires in the home by checking electric blankets, heaters and dehumidifiers, and our Kids in Cars project looks at providing a cash back discount of up to $100 for families who purchase a new car seat or booster seat and have it installed by one of our qualified car seat technicians.

If you are interested in either of these projects, sign up to our emails by visiting www.safewatch.org.nz or following our Facebook page www.facebook.com/ctsafect.