Anthony Green

Water, summer and kids having fun are synonymous. That was true for me when I was young, whether it involved a swimming pool, the ocean or even a big scoop of water ice in my native Philadelphia.

Thanks so much to everyone who turned out earlier this week for Safe Kids Capitol Day! The event, hosted by Safe Kids Worldwide and the co-chairs of the Congressional Kids’ Safety Caucus, highlighted preventable injuries, the number one killer of kids in the U.S.

Did you know that the "zip" in "zipcode" means “zoning improvement plan” or that every day 200 billion M & Ms are sold in the United States?

The good thing is that we don't need to know those things.

We thank Congressman Jon Runyan (R-NJ) for guest authoring this blog.

We are now in the thick of the fall sports and recreation season. Last year, 46 million kids played some form of team sports. As we keep a keen eye on the games, we also know we need to keep an eye on keeping our kids safe.

While working at Safe Kids, regardless of whether we have children or not, we develop a parents’ radar for ways kids are vulnerable to injury. I am no different. Earlier this summer, I visited my family in Santa Cruz, California, and spent a lot of time watching my then 8-year-old nephew, Logan, play baseball with his team, the Mets.

Albert Einstein once said that “doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results” is not consistent with good mental health.  But here we are eight days before the fiscal cliff kicks in, just as we sat on the cliff on New Year’s Day.

A car crash happens so quickly, but the pain can last forever, especially when it’s the pain of losing a child. Last April, 5-year-old Jason Santamaria went for a drive with his Aunt Florencia. Based on Jason’s size and weight, the safest place for him to ride was in a car seat or booster seat in the back seat of the car.

This week, Safe Kids Worldwide weighed in on an important issue concerning children. And we brought 62 of our closest friends with us.

Thursday was Safe Kids Day on Capitol Hill. We held a bipartisan event on September 20 to educate Senators, Members of Congress and their staff about the risks that kids face and the challenges parents have in preventing unintentional injury, the #1 killer of kids in America.