VEAZIE – The Veazie Community School offers a program to its kindergarten pupils called Community Helpers. The program has run for about 10 years each October and is part of the curriculum, said kindergarten teachers Diane Smart and Holly Humphrey.

The idea behind Community Helpers is to expose children to different resources, “making them aware of what’s out there and what a community is all about,” Smart said, and “what’s beyond the school,” Humphrey said.

Parents and others come into the two kindergarten classes, which have a combined total of 20 pupils this year, and talk for a half-hour or so about their work in the community and about how they help people. Some guest speakers have items from their professions to show the pupils.

“We have an ambulance coming, a dental hygienist, maybe a veterinarian,” Smart said.

Veazie police Officer Chris Greeley was scheduled to talk to the children on Oct. 21. He said he would talk about such things as when to call a police officer, and “what do we do, what are our jobs like,” and “how do you become a police officer? What’s the training?”

“I’ll go in whatever direction the kids want to go in,” Greeley said, adding that though they are still very young, it might be a chance to see if being a police officer is something that they would like to do when they get older.

Some jobs require uniforms and suits, such as those worn by a fireman. Both teachers said that the program helps the children to see that there’s a person inside that uniform or suit. It also helps them to know that people such as police officers are there to help them.