Operation Glow has kids seeing the light on safety

WASILLA — If all goes according to plan, Valley trick-or-treaters will be a lot more visible this Halloween thanks to the efforts of local law enforcement and the Mat-Su Borough School District.

Sgt. Kelly Swihart said Operation Glow is a first-of-its-kind program in the Valley where law enforcement distributes thousands of glow sticks to area schools, including every elementary school. The target recipients are students in kindergarten through fifth grade.

“Last night we had a pizza party where we got volunteers from each jurisdiction,” plus the Mat-Su Youth Court and the Mat-Su Borough School Board, Swihart said Wednesday.

“We put together 6,500 of these glow sticks and lanyards. We were able to get those attached in under an hour and a half,” he said.

The Palmer Police Department is distributing the 6-inch glow sticks to Palmer-area elementary schools, Wasilla and Houston are handling schools in their areas, and Alaska State Troopers have everywhere else, Swihart said.

The idea is that the glow sticks will go to teachers, who will activate them just before children go home on Halloween. The sticks have a six-hour lifespan and will be active during trick-or-treating time, Swihart said.

Starting Monday, parents homeschooling their children or others, for whatever reason, who won’t get a glow stick at a school on Halloween can pick one up at the Wasilla, Houston and Palmer police stations, Swihart said.

On Halloween, officers will have extra glow sticks in patrol cars to hand out.

The inspiration for the program came from Dan Wellborne, a lieutenant with the Fairbanks Police Department, who ran a similar program there, Swihart said.

The money to fund the effort came from the Alaska Highway Safety Office, and totaled out at just under $10,000, he said. The grant also will pay for two officers to work special overtime patrols on Halloween.

“That’s all from highway safety,” Swihart said. “They really wanted to promote that pedestrian safety.”