In their annual “Touch a Truck” - kids from all over southeast North Carolina can come and find out what it’s like to turn on a siren, see the inner workings of a helicopter dashboard and know up close and personal about the vehicles they may see every day in Bladen County.
Mark DeLap | Bladen Journal
BCC TOUCH A TRUCK
DUBLIN – Bladen Community College hosted their fourth-annual “Touch A Truck” last year which was a program that encouraged children from the community to know the vehicles that surround their everyday lives in Bladen County.
They are into their fifth annual “Touch A Truck” this year.
Coordination was the key to getting all the different vehicles out on a Saturday morning to the college grounds and to get them all there at the designated time of 9 a.m. and running until noon.
“I have a great team of people,” Sondra Guyton, Vice president for Institutional Advancement and Community Relations said. “They’ve been working on this for weeks. We do this every year and send out a “save the date” to those you see here. We try to find different kinds of vehicles each year with the idea of inspiring little ones and get them on our campus and let them see the different kinds of vehicles there are. We hope they can get excited through the years and hopefully someday come back to the college too. We hope that when we get them when they’re really small, then they’ll come back for summer camps. Then we hope to see them back when they are in middle school and high school and we just want to grow these children up in our community.”
“Touch A Truck will be held Saturday, April 12 from 9:00-1:00,” Guyton said. “This year, we are partnering with Bladen Smart Start and they are bringing the Family Spring Fling on campus that same day to make it a larger event. This is also the last day of our spring plant sale at the greenhouse so, we are expecting a crowd,”
There will be school buses, law enforcement vehicles, ambulances, BCC van, a transfer truck, maintenance vehicles, helicopters, tractors and combine, fire trucks, motorcycles, garbage trucks, an all-terrain vehicle, the mobile Library truck, a mobile command unit for law enforcement and military vehicles, just to name a few.
“From the sheriff’s department to the EMS to the helicopters and the farmers, there is just a great sense of a community that works so hard to work together for the kids.”
The spring plant sale this year is also a partnership with East Bladen and West Bladen’s agriculture programs and will be April 9 through April 12 at the Greenhouse. 3 programs should make an impressive sale.
“We will hold our Annual Donor & Scholarship Reception Thursday, April 10 at 5:30,” Guyton said. “I’m working on a better name for this event, but it is an opportunity for donors to meet their scholarship recipients. We generally have nice refreshments, a guest speaker, and photo opportunities for the donors and their recipients.
On April 17, there will be a Wellness Fair on campus in the auditorium. BCC’s allied health programs will have tables set up with information and activities for participants. They are also inviting the community health partners to join us.
One of the big events of the spring season is the annual plant sale April 9-12.