Children at Kent State University's Child Development
Center play on outdoor equipment belonging to University
Facilities Management during the "Meet a Truck" event.

The children of the Child Development Center at Kent State University were introduced to the maintenance trucks on campus by the University Facilities Management team, which hosted the “Meet a Truck” event on Thursday, Oct. 9.

During the event, the children got to beep the horns, lift the levers and sit inside the trucks and equipment provided by the facilities team, which included mowers, snow plows, a large dump truck, tractors and a street sweeper.

“Our children travel around the campus,” says Terri Cardy, the outdoor educator for Kent State’s Child Development Center. “They see these vehicles all the time; they’re preschool, kindergarten and toddler age, and they’re enthralled with it.”

Cardy says that there were only a few kids who were afraid of the noise of the trucks, but for the most
part, they were climbing all over the trucks and very engaged.

“Afterward, they were so excited and couldn’t stop talking about it,” she says. “They kept asking to do it again, so we hope that next year we can have another ‘Meet a Truck’ for them because we all had an amazing time.”

A Kent State Child Development Center teacher and her
kids watch as a truck belonging to University Facilities
Management pulls into the center's premises during the
"Meet a Truck" event.

Kent State’s manager for grounds and maintenance Heather White says that she has seen other groups outside of Kent State do something similar to the “Meet a Truck” and thought this would be a great idea for the kids to enjoy. She was thrilled that the center agreed to let them come.

“I also thought it would be fun for my guys, and they really embraced it,” White says. “They’re having a lot more fun than I originally thought they would have. A lot of smiles on the big guys’ faces too. It’s a nice outreach. They are one of our closest neighbors so they see us going back and forth all the time and my guys do wave at them, but now it’s an opportunity for them to sit there in the trucks.”

White says that the children, staff of the center and the maintenance workers had an amazing time, and they are open to having another “Meet a Truck” event in the future.

For more information about Kent State’s Child Development Center, visit http://www2.kent.edu/ehhs/cdc/index.cfm.

For more information about University Facilities Management, visit http://www2.kent.edu/ufm/index.cfm.