Lynn students have design on fire safety

LYNN – Most public school students display their art on the family refrigerator or a classroom wall, but Raiden Nuy, Genesis Beato and Mackayla Beaton are not most students.Three billboards plastered with the trio’s fire-prevention posters overlook Wyoma Square, and the students will be honored at fire department headquarters on Western Avenue Wednesday afternoon.”The posters are eye-catching and convey a simple message to parents: Check your smoke alarms – for your children,” said Fire Lt. Israel Gonzalez.Working with Fire Chief James McDonald, Gonzalez in September organized a citywide student art contest to illustrate for parents the importance of installing and checking home smoke alarms.”We got all the school principals in one room and said, ?Guys, we need your help,'” Gonzalez said.Judges sorted through the poster piles for three hours before picking the winning posters. Nuy, a Drewicz School first-grader, drew a picture of his house with his family standing safely outside.The billboard featuring the poster with his son’s name in big letters means a lot to Nuy’s father, Vann Chao, who survived a house fire when he was 7.”I constantly remind my kids about fire safety,” he said.Breed Middle School seventh-grader Genesis Beato’s poster shows two women in a tight embrace in front of a grave marked by a large cross. “It is supposed to be their mother’s grave,” Beato said.Gonzalez said the poster contest provided an opportunity for students to have fun focusing on a deadly serious subject. He said National Fire Protection Association statistics show working smoke alarms double the odds of surviving a fire.”Most of the time kids die in fires, they didn’t have working smoke alarms,” Gonzalez said.McDonald’s fire department career spans four decades, including 10 or more times he estimates he has responded to a fire involving a child’s death.”It used to be firefighting was our primary job and fire safety education was secondary: Now they go hand in hand,” he said.Beaton’s smoke alarm poster shows an animated alarm sitting at a school desk concentrating on a test. “I wanted it to be a little play on words,” she said.The Classical High School junior said Principal Gene Constantino surprised her when he announced she won first place in the contest. “When he called me down to the office, I thought I was in trouble,” she said.Gonzalez said Clear Channel will keep the poster billboards up for a month.