Touch-A-Truck event fun time for children
CRANBERRY TWP — Horns were blaring and children were smiling at the annual Touch-A-Truck event Wednesday morning at Cranberry Township Community Park. Children had a chance to sit in the driver’s seat of a fire truck, police car, construction vehicle, semitruck and even a monster truck.
The event was sponsored by the Constructors Association of Western Pennsylvania, Cranberry Township Parks & Recreation, Cranberry Township and the Cranberry Public Library.
Leslie Pallotta, library director, said this is the second year the event has been in Community Park.
“I just like seeing all of the kids get really excited about having all the trucks in one place,” she said. “It is not something that they normally get to do. They see the trucks on the road and they drive past them, but they don’t get to stop and actually look at them and climb on them and beep the horns.”
Pallotta said library officials came up with the idea to have the event. The first year the library decided to keep the event small and just have the township vehicles.
Jason Dailey, Cranberry’s director of Public Works, said this year the department helped coordinate the different vendors and vehicles. The department provided its excavator and some of its service vehicles.
Palotta said Constructors Association of Western Pennsylvania wanted to get involved since it only recently relocated to Cranberry Township.
The association was a good addition to the event, because it helps promote young people getting into construction related fields, Dailey said.
Dailey said it is great seeing all of the children interested in the equipment.
“It is just a really neat event,” Dailey said. “We try to expose them to all types of different stuff ... This type of stuff really shows the kids a nice variety of things that might spur some interest.”
