With perfect weather beckoning people outdoors Saturday, Sportsman Lake Park was a bustling place. 

From train rides to splash pad hijinks to duck feeding and biking, the park drew thousands ready for their first taste of a true springlike weekend outdoors.

But at the heart of it all was the park’s main attraction, at least for one weekend: the Brooks’ Place Safe Kids Expo, a family event aimed at raising child safety awareness and encouraging families to enjoy each other’s company.

That may sound like a pretty broad goal, but there’s a definite purpose behind it.

“We’re wanting families to come out to be together, and have fun together, and really become closer,” explained Gail Swafford, the executive director of Brooks’ Place. “That’s really they key to promoting healthy families, and, really, addressing the kinds of child safety problems that we see more and more, which so often originate from family issues.”

Brooks’ Place organizes the expo each April to coincide with Child Abuse Prevention and Awareness Month. As an outreach of the Cullman County Child Advocacy Center, Brooks’ Place provides a one-stop point of access for free services to child victims of sexual and physical abuse.

As society changes, the Safe Kids Expo’s focus on domestic issues has begun supplanting its earlier focus on random acts of violence against children. That’s why promoting quality family time is more important than ever, said Swafford.

“It’s very much about safety awareness as it pertains to families,” she said. “When we started, we would take polaroid pictures and display those as a way to remember child victims of abduction, and that is still a significant concern. But now, we also really have to address what goes on at the family level, which is where we see so many child safety issues.

“In that way, encouraging families to have a good time together, and for parents to spend time with their kids, is really a way to promote child safety.”

With support from an assortment of local businesses, religious organizations, law enforcement agencies and emergency response teams, the Safe Kids Expo also offers children an opportunity to forge trusting relationships with the people and entities who strengthen the overall community.

“With the presence of EMS and police and fire, we try to do that,” said Swafford. “Some kids are raised to have a suspicion about the people who do these services, and this is a way for the kids to get to know law enforcement and emergency response people, and to kind of form a trust that these people are part of what makes a community stronger.”

That’s exactly the effect the presence of the Cullman Fire Department’s massive ladder truck, attended Saturday by CFD Engineer Neville Franks, seemed to be having.

Vinemont 6th grader Lucas Friedrich checked out the truck’s interior while his grown-ups, Ashley Johnson and Marco Machado, talked with other parents and fire personnel on the ground. Having a nice park; one that creates a rich environment for bringing people together, only helped the social atmosphere.

“It’s a nice place,” said Machado. “We come here a lot. We were at the yard sale they had here last month, and there were a lot of people here then — but not as many as there are today. He [Lucas] has been on the paddleboat; we’ve already ridden the train.”

“And we have another one; a teenager, running around here somewhere,” added Johnson. “I don’t know why he doesn’t wanna be seen with us — we’re the coolest parents you can have! I mean, I’d love to be seen with me!”

That kind of good-natured family give-and-take is exactly what Brooks’ Place hopes to encourage. Attendance at this year’s event certainly aced the eye test; the park was mobbed with people, making it difficult to tell who was there solely for the expo from the park’s regular, casual visitors.

With plenty of time remaining before the expo’s official end time, Brooks’ Place forensic interviewer Blakely Hopper estimated approximately 1,000 people — including more than 400 wristband-wearing children — had already passed through the expo gate’s blue banners.

“The event is always free, so of course that helps,” she said. “And it’s just such an important thing for our community. We always want to get this type of awareness out in front of as many people as we can.”

Benjamin Bullard can be reached by phone at 256-734-2131 ext. 145.