This week, on April 29, Dawson Creek RCMP Detachment Commander and Staff Sergeant Damon Werrell, participated in a ZOOM lunch with Mrs. Waddell's Grade 5/6/7 class at Parkland School in Farmington.

The day before, S/Sgt Werrell had ZOOM lunch with Ms. Schlauwitz's Grade 1/2 class at the Pouce Coupe Elementary. Last week, S/Sgt Werrell had ZOOM lunch with Mrs. Ryan's Grade 3/4 class at Tremblay School as well as Mrs. Katnich's Grade 3/4 class at the Pouce Coupe Elementary.

S/Sgt Werrell says his calendar is booked over the next few weeks at many more schools throughout the South Peace region, and he expects that the popular lunch-hour initiative will continue throughout the rest of the school year.

S/Sgt Werrell introduced online ZOOM lunches to School District 59 in the South Peace as a way to get police officers into the classroom while working through the COVID-19 pandemic. Since starting the program a few weeks ago, S/Sgt Werrell's lunches have been booked solid, with many schools and classrooms expressing interest in breaking bread and having a conversation.

"The pandemic has required us to use out-of-the-box thinking to generate positive policing relations with our youth, without the ability to physically attend schools" says S/Sgt Werrell, "The online lunches provide an opportunity to interact with the students in an environment which is less formal and creates the ability to generate non-traditional conversations, break down barriers, and throw ideas back and forth".

As example, S/Sgt Werrell informed that he has learned (from the Grade 3/4 class) that spider web is in fact, 100 times stronger than Kevlar, and should seriously be considered as being used as a manufacturing material in police vests. Another idea which was brought up by the same school class, was to use racoons for diffusing bombs rather than dogs, because raccoons have fine motor skills and cannot only locate the bomb with their noses but also diffuse it when found, making them a much better choice than police dogs.

Information provided by the Dawson Creek RCMP.