Carbon County officials recently proclaimed the last week of April was "Sports Safety Week" in the county.

During the county commissioners' meeting last Thursday, the commissioners adopted a proclamation to support an effort that Carbon County Safe Kids and Pyramid Sports Performance Center is working on to help stop sports-related injuries in children.Safe Kids Carbon County Chapter and Pyramid Sports Performance Center have planned two special youth sports injury prevention activities and community-based events in an effort to educate families about child safety and sports injury prevention. The sports safety clinics will be held on Wednesday, May 23, and Tuesday, July 31, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., at the Pyramid, 230 Ochre St., Lehighton.The commissioners recognized Mindy Graver, chairperson of Carbon County Safe Kids; Mel Zeigler, a member of Carbon County Safe Kids and Brian Fetterman, head, strength and conditioning coach at Pyramid, for their combined efforts to help the children and parents in the county learn about the importance of being safe while playing sports.The programs are funded through a $1,500 Safe Kids USA grant, sponsored by Johnson and Johnson.Graver said Carbon County Safe Kids is very fortunate to be selected for this grant because only 50 programs cross the country received funding for sports safety programs. This is the second year Carbon County Safe Kids received the grant.She noted that this year's clinics will target coaches, parents and older athletes and will discuss the topic of concussions, including symptoms and how to handle them; as well as other sports injuries like overuse, dehydration, heath stroke, and injuries due to pre-existing medical conditions.Certified professionals from Pyramid, including Steve Strauss, director or sports performance; Fetterman; Rob Mikulski, assistant football coach at East Stroudsburg University and sports performance coach; and Tim Kocher, certified personal trainer and nutrition specialist, will be on hand to speak during the clinics.For more information on Safe Kids USA sports injury prevention, visit

www.safekids.org/sports; or for more information on the upcoming clinics, contact Graver at Penn State Extension at (570) 325-2788.The Carbon County Safe Kids Chapter is a member of Safe Kids Worldwide, a global network of organizations dedicated to preventing unintentional injury. Safe Kids was founded in 1995.