SALISBURY — Salisbury Elementary students were more excited than usual as they poured off their buses Friday morning as local first responders were there to greet them with hearty high-fives.
A few members of the police and fire departments gathered outside the school’s front entrance about 8 a.m. ahead of bus arrivals for the first day of High-Five Friday, with cruisers and fire engines among the first things students saw as buses pulled up.
“Police and fire do it the first Friday of every month. This is the first one,” Principal Michael Astuccio said, as he DJed in the crosswalk.
The excitement of the kids on the first busses could be heard through the closed doors as they eagerly waited to say hello. As soon as the doors opened they came flooding out, with both firefighters and police matching their enthusiasm.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity for the students to connect with some of our public servants and start the day on a positive note, build those relationships. Our firefighters and police officers are people they’re going to see in the community,” Astuccio said.
Sixth-grader Chris Pereira said he was glad that the first responders were there to greet them.
“It feels good to know that they keep us safe,” Pereira said.
First-grader Arthur Shamano was all smiles as he gave firefighters and police officers high-fives.
“It was cool, I really appreciated it,” Shamano said.
Among the first responders greeting students was Salisbury police Lt. Rich Dellaria.
“It’s a great little outreach program we do. It allows the students to get more comfortable with the first responders. That’s the goal here,” Dellaria said.
Dellaria added the outreach endeavor has been going on for years.
“We’ve been doing this since right after the pandemic. We had done it before but it went away for a bit, so we decided to bring it back,” Dellaria said.
School secretary Cheri Herdman was among staff members outside watching the spectacle as students came into the building.
“It always brings a lot of smiles to the kids’ faces. This is something that the police and fire have done with us every month on the first Friday. It’s just a great way to start to start a Friday,” Herdman said.
The high-fives were only the start to what was scheduled as a full day of fun, with the Fall Ball set for students in grades 3 through 6 beginning at 6 p.m.
“We’re hoping to have a good time. We are awaiting an arrival of an Amazon package that is supposed to contain a pumpkin costume for DJ Pumpkin. So fingers crossed it gets here on time,” Astuccio said.
Matt Petry covers Amesbury and Salisbury for The Daily News of Newburyport. Email him at: mpetry@northofboston.com.