ABOVE: A Monday morning crowd of local dignitaries and residents listens to Mayor Rickey Williams, Jr and Police Chief Christopher Yates as the Traffic Education Center at Lincoln Park’s Friendly Town is given a new life.
It was Friendly Town’s original building back in 1968. And now, thanks to the early efforts from the Late State Senator Scott Bennett to the latest donations from the Julius W. Hegeler II Foundation, the latest special Friendly Town moment is the Traffic Education Center being redone to teach even more school children all over Vermilion County about safety.
During Monday morning’s festivities, Oakwood students were driving the electric powered cars around Friendly Town, as Danville’s Mayor Rickey Williams, Jr looked on.
AUDIO: The way people have just stepped up and volunteered to keep this place going, the Hegeler Foundation; I think it’s just a testament to when a community puts its mind to something, and works together on all different levels; public, private, governmental, non-governmental, citizens with everyone working together; it just shows what we can do.
(2nd Picture) Eric Brown (center), son of original “Officer Friendly” Jerome D. Brown, addresses the crowd.
Danville’s Police Chief Christopher Yates, who was very happy with this past Saturday’s annual volunteer work day and cookout, said this will be a busy summer for Danville and Vermilion County kids coming to Friendly Town.
AUDIO: Right now we have; it’s up to 18 students per session. And it goes from the first week of June to the last week of July. Plus, we have the county schools that are coming out.
Oakwood Police Chief Ron Soderstrom was a student at Friendly Town in 1970. Now, he helps teach there.
AUDIO: You get a sentimental feel for it, because you’ve been here. I learned so much from it, and I just love to carry it on to the kids.
(1st and 3rd Pictures) Oakwood students enjoy a morning of driving and learning at Friendly Town.
Perhaps the happiest person at Monday’s ceremony was Eric Brown, whose father Jerome D. Brown was Friendly Town’s original “Officer Friendly.”
AUDIO: And Chief Brey found a town in Florida that had a little thing like this. And somehow, we really don’t know, but Chief Brey picked my dad. And they flew to Florida, and they looked at that little community like Friendly Town, came back; and then they started getting donations.
And before long, $63,000 were collected for the original Friendly Town. Eric Brown; who now lives in Kenosha, Wisconsin; said he could not recall the exact Florida town that gave Chief Brey the idea for Danville’s Friendly Town.
