These Wichita campers got a surprise Friday: The counselors arrived with lights and sirens

More than a dozen emergency vehicles with lights and sirens blazing surprised a group of campers in Wichita on Friday.

Some kids plugged their ears, some waved and most looked confused.

But the confused stares soon turned into shouts of “Hey, I know that cop!” “She was here yesterday!”

The day before, the roughly 200 first-, second- and fifth-graders had enjoyed a day of fishing, boating and other activities with their counselors at a Boy Scout Awareness Camp. Friday, their counselors looked different. Instead of their camp T-shirts, the police officers, firefighters and other first responders wore their uniforms.

Why the big reveal, as camp organizers called it?

Because they wanted the kids to know the counselors as people, first.

“Part of our goal is to bridge that perception and let everyone get to know each other as the people they are,” Paul Attwater, a board member for Boy Scouts of America, said.

“All of these kids just get to know, this is their new friend from camp, this is their camp counselor, the person they get to fish next to, or kayak with. They’re having a lot of fun.”

After the parade of police motorcycles, police cars, a fire truck and emergency vehicle arrived, the campers got to inspect them up close.

“I went in the police cars, I was honking the horns a lot,” fifth-grader Sabrena Adams said. “I saw a lot of people that were here yesterday, but they were in the police cars.”

The students said they had no idea their counselors were also first responders.

“I didn’t know that she was a police officer,” fifth-grader Al’Mari Hunt said about her camp counselor.

The annual camp was held June 2-3 at OJ Watson Park in Wichita, after the first day on June 1 was canceled because of rainy weather. The camp originally had 700 kids registered, and had to be split into two different events. The next event is set for the end of June.

First responders talked to the kids about what they do. Among the presentations was one on police dogs and another on horses.

District Director of Boy Scouts of America Michael Redondo said that the goal is to improve the comfort level between kids and first responders.

“In the past, we’ve done surveys … of how the kids felt about first responders. When they see and hear sirens and lights coming down the street at high speeds, how does that make them feel?” Redondo said. “Then we gave surveys at the end of the big reveal about how they felt about those things. We, pretty much every year, saw the impact on paper.”

Redondo said the way most campers thought of first responders improved.

Keith Allen, captain with the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office, said this was his first year participating.

“It really builds relationships between first responders and the children in a manner that’s different than any other concept I’ve been exposed to where the first responders get to volunteer with the kids before the kids know they’re first responders,” Allen said. “The kids get to know them as people, not as a uniform.

Campgoers had various favorite activities. Most said boating was their favorite, but others liked shooting BB guns, fishing and kayaking.

“I loved camp. My favorite part was the BB guns,” campgoer Damien Atherton said.

Redondo said the main focus is building that relationship.

“Now, hopefully our kids, when they interact with first responders, it’s in their mind, ‘Oh, these are people, I can trust them,’” he said. “And it just changes that experience and creates a safer future for the kids.”