BOCES students cited for festival contributions

Nine Security and Law Enforcement students from the Orleans Career and Technical Education Center recently helped out at the Niagara Celtic Heritage Society Festival, which is the largest and most successful Celtic Festivals in New York state.

Former Security and Law Enforcement student Ken Allore, who now works for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, asked teacher Ed Grabowski if any of this students would be willing to volunteer their time to help out with the festival which is attended by nearly 12,000 people.

“Unlike the Buffalo Irish Festival which utilized paid staff, our festival is 100 percent volunteer,” said Allore. “Hundreds, if not thousands man-hours go into the festival year round to make sure things go off without a hitch. This festival would not be possible without the help of our dedicated volunteer force.”

Students Alicia DeLine, Dylan Rickard, Joanna Larsen, Tyler Dimsey, Kevin Palm, William Skidmore, John Whalen, Melissa Tucker and Emily Thering stepped up to the plate and not only helped out with security at the event, but assisted with some very important incidents that took place.

“Our Festival Director Phil Banks was a little skeptical about having students help out with the security detail, but he had nothing but positive comments to say about the students and the help they provided,” said Allore.

Not only did the students assist in normal security detail like traffic control and clearing the parade route, they assisted in a medical emergency when one of the vendors suffered a heart attack and were instrumental in establishing a perimeter and blocking traffic so that EMS could safely transport him to a hospital. They also assisted in locating three missing children over the course of the weekend.

“In one incident the students approached a young woman who was obviously frantic because she could not locate her younger brother,” Allore said. “They contacted me immediately and I instructed them to lock down the gates since the ticket takers were no longer in attendance. Within two minutes student DeLine located the missing child and returned him to his sister. I was very impressed by the way they handled the situation.”

The Festival organizers were so grateful of the students help at the event that they drafted a letter of appreciation for all the students and a letter of commendation for those students involved in locating the missing child.