BOULDER COUNTY, Colo. — The Lafayette community is joining forces after two cars hit two kids off Baseline Road last week within less than 24 hours.
The first crash was reported just after 4 p.m. Thursday on Baseline Road at King Street. The second second crash was reported on Baseline Road at Roser Drive, just after 8 a.m. Friday. The two intersections are about a quarter mile from one another.
“It hits close to home,” said Jennie Fletemeyer, whose daughter gets on and off the bus at the intersection of Baseline Road and King Street. “I want to help the drivers know about this crosswalk so that kids and our community can cross safely and confidently. So we want to set them up for success and we love our I.P. community.”
Parents organized a Facebook group and a Google Doc to take turns at the two intersections where the two accidents happened last week.
If kids cross while adults aren’t there, buckets with flags are locked on the street poles for kids to hold while crossing the street.
“They just pick up a flag up and walk across when it’s safe and put it down on the other side,” Fletemeyer said.
Different neighbors have included different ideas, including Jennie’s daughter, Willow.
“We put up some slow-down signs in the road and we put some signs on these buckets that say ‘take it to make it,’” Willow Fletemeyer said.
Willow said it feels good to work together, but she says it’s not about her.
“It’s not supposed to be self-gratifying,” Willow Fletemeyer said. “So it’s supposed to be for the people who got hurt, and I want to remember that as well.”
It’s about helping the community they live in and love.
“We are so much better together,” Jennie Fletemeyer said. “Together, we can accomplish so much more. It takes a village, right, to raise these kids and we look out for each other and we want our kids to have freedom and that takes all of us kind of pitching in and hanging out together but also caring for one another.”