Viewpoint:
The commentary below represents the ideas, observations and opinions of the author.
At the Homewood Fire Department’s annual open house on Oct. 9, I saw a man showing his young son the portable room set up in the parking lot for the fire suppression system demonstration later in the schedule.
Firefighters always have two such rooms set up side-by-side, one with a sprinkler system, the other unprotected. Fire crews set each on fire so they can show visitors the often dramatic differences in fire damage.
The man and his son had reason to visit the open house and pay special attention to the demonstration. They both survived a fire in their Ford Heights home in 2015.
The father, Deon Adams, credited the home’s sprinkler system with saving lives and property.
“Everybody was able to get out safely,” he said. “We had some things we were able to salvage because we had sprinklers. We lost a lot, but we were able to save a lot.”
He said the family was able to remodel the home and moved back in about 18 months after the fire.
“We went through it. We learned from it,” he said. They came to the open house because fire safety education is important to the family.
“I definitely want to let him know about fire safety, fire protection,” Adams said.
Homewood marketing efforts receive national honor
The village of Homewood announced on Oct. 13 that its marketing program won a Savvy Award from the City-County Communications & Marketing Association (3CMA) in the Video – Interview/Talk Show/News Programming category.
The award was for “…And Now for Something Completely Homewood,” a video series highlighting life in Homewood.
In comments posted on the 3CMA website, one judge said, “The videos were short, and edited well, perfect for today’s bite-sized media consumption. From raising chickens to giving a tour of the farmer’s market, this series was fun to watch and a great way to showcase the ‘alternative aspects of everyday life’ in Homewood.”
Visit https://bit.ly/homewood-savvy to see the award-winning work.