Schalke 04’s Foundation makes the road of Gelsenkirchen safer

On Tuesday (13 June), Schalke 04’s mascot Erwin visited the Albert-Schweitzer-Strasse primary school to meet the schoolchildren.

Especially in the dark season, children are hard to see on their way to school. Safety vests help prevent serious accidents and thus ensure more road safety. And especially in the hometown of Gelsenkirchen, the children wear yellow clothes, thanks to the ‘Royal Blue Foundation’.

At the beginning of the 2016/2017 school year, they decided to distribute vests in the favorite colors of “The Miners” (Schalke players’ nickname) to the third graders of the Gelsenkirchen primary schools, in order to render visually more attractive the wearing of the warning vests. Gelsenkirchen also participated in the campaign so that around 2,500 copies of the warning clothing could be sent so far.

The preventive action is already showing success. In the annual survey, the “Security in Road Traffic for Children found that the number of vest carriers in Gelsenkirchen rose. At this year’s census, half of the primary school pupils at Albert-Schweitzer-Strasse carried a vest.

“We are wearing the safety vest so people can see us and therefore fewer accidents will happen,” agreed Luisa, Anna-Lena and Neele from the class 3a.

As a reward for their exemplary behavior, Erwin visited the children – in a blue warning garb. Each child got an autograph and the classes shot common photos with the mascot. And even if Erwin hardly wanted to give his vest with signatures of the professionals, he finally handed it over to the rector Heike Pasche – as an award for success.