Cape’s Rotary, Kiwanis Club to distribute concrete benches to 200 sites

It may just look like a square of dirt, but this site will soon be the home of permanent benches. It is the latest move to keep your kids safe at the bus stop.

“I cannot believe it we’ve been waiting so long,” Elmer Tabor said.

Tabor is with the Cape’s Rotary Club. The group, along with the city’s Kiwanis Club, is behind “Project Safe Zone.”

On Tuesday, city employees started prepping the 200 sites, getting ready for plastic benches.

“Finally the day has come that we can roll up our sleeves and we can put these suckers in place,” Tabor said.

The 6-foot benches will be mounted on a giant piece of concrete to make it more permanent. The 200 sites getting these benches, we were told by city employees, were chosen based on the number of students using the bus stop. Elementary and middle schools have priority.

The goal is to have 25 to 30 of these sites prepped a week and get all of these permanent benches by the start of the school year in August.

Benches and picnic tables started popping up across the city after the death of Layla Aiken. Aiken, 8, was hit by a truck and killed while waiting at her bus stop.

Tabor said the areas that already have picnic tables will be relocated to places that the clubs are not addressing. The persons who put the picnic table will be contacted to move it so their efforts will not be going to waste.

“If they hang around that bench, they’re in a safe zone,” Tabor said. “They’re not playing in the street.”