If somebody asked you the name of the capital of California, what would you say? San Francisco? Or maybe Los Angeles? It has to be one or the other, you would think. But no. The capital of the Golden State is Sacramento, a city with a population of less than half a million.
yesterday and today
Travelling to Sacramento through the Central Valley from San Francisco you will notice plenty of farms, orchards and citrus fruit trees. Many of the restaurants here are proud to use local produce. Sacramento is marketing itself as “America’s Farm-to-Fork Capital”, where the distance from farm to fork is small, supporting local agriculture and saving energy and food miles.
Sacramento dates from 1850, which makes it the oldest city in California. When the Spanish discovered the valley and river in the early years of the 19th century they thought the air very pure, as pure as the “Santísimo Sacramento.”
diversity and safety
In 2002, Sacramento was named “America’s most diverse city” in a civil rights project conducted at Harvard University. In a way Sacramento is very much an All-American City – so maybe it is no surprise that Safetyville USA is based here. This is a miniature city with streets and buildings where children learn about safety. It is part of the Safety Center and the organization’s Vice-President of Development and Communications Kelly Huffman explains more in the accompanying interview.
CON AUDIO:
Welcome to Safetyville
California is home to famous tourist destinations like Los Angeles and San Francisco. The state’s capital city, Sacramento, also has a Spanish name, but it is less well known. It prides itself on being a typical American city and that is probably why it is home to “Safetyville USA”. This is a miniature version of Sacramento where children are taught about safety. It forms part of the larger Safety Center. We asked Kelly Huffman, the Safety Center’s Vice-President of Development and Communications, to tell us its story:
Kelly Huffman (standard American accent): Well, Safety Center was formed in 1934 by the then mayor of Sacramento. He was concerned over a recent rash in traffic accidents that resulted in fatalities, and this is well before a time of traffic lights and traffic laws, frankly. So Safety Center, or the Sacramento Safety Council, is what it was called at the time, was formed, to kind of address those concerns in traffic safety and try and keep the residents of Sacramento safer. Over the years, Safety Center grew to really address all safety concerns of the community, adding things like our DUI programme, we were one of the first… actually, we helped craft the first Driving Under the Influence education programme in California. So we developed an education programme to help rehabilitate those people so that they wouldn’t make the same mistake again. We added that programme, we added (a) workplace safety programme, to keep workers safe, when they go to work every day, and eventually in 1984 we started a children’s programme, and thought the best way to teach children safety lessons was to let them practise in a miniature town where they could really practise those lessons and apply them to their daily lives.
stranger danger
Kelly Huffman then told us more about the children’s programme:
Kelly Huffman:Typically, children come through from the age of pre-school through about third grade, which would be four years old through about eight years old. And they learn with their class and their teachers, with a guided tour guide, everything from how to cross the road safely, to when and how to dial 911, abandoned-building safety, we have a lot of abandoned buildings in our town, and teach them why they would not want to play there, it wouldn’t be a good place to explore, as well as stranger danger, fire and police, bicycle safety, railroad-crossing safety, we have many, many lessons and, depending on their age, we can customize their learning experience for them.
all-american
And Kelly Huffman agrees that Sacramento is an All-American city:
Kelly Huffman: Absolutely! I would say Sacramento is a typical All-American city, and that’s why Safetyville reflects that and having diverse businesses and things you would see in Anytown, USA.
