Elma is prepared to draw a large crowd this coming weekend thanks to the 19th annual City-Wide Garage Sale and the Elma Police Department’s fourth annual Safety Fair.

The City-Wide Garage Sale will begin June 23 and run through June 24. Some 50 garage sales will be featured throughout Elma and just outside the city. Start and end times vary from sale to sale, but a map of all participating sales will be available for pick up at the Elma Chamber of Commerce on the morning of June 22. Maps also will be availble on the Chamber of Commerce website (www.elmachamber.org).

“This is the most (sales) we’ve ever had,” said chamber director Paula Jones.

American Junk Queens will be stationed at the Grays Harbor County Fairgrounds 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. June 23 and 24 and will feature more than 60 antique and collectibles vendors. Admission is $5 or $3 with a canned food donation.

A used book sale is again part of the festivities this year and will be located in front of the Elma Timberland Library.

Safety Fair

The safety fair is a way for the police and fire departments to reach out and make connections with the community, said Officer Josh Wheeler of the Elma Police Department.

“It’s an outreach to help the department get to know the community,” he said. “We want the little ones of the community to be able to comfortably ask us for help. It’s about building good relationships with the community.”

The safety fair has grown since its first year when not much was offered other than safety tips and a dunk tank where kids could dunk police officers and fire fighters.

The safety fair as it is today took form with the remodeling of the Elma Police Department building, and the police department thought it would be a good idea to invite the community to take a tour to see “what their police department is all about,” Wheeler said.

Kids will again have the opportunity to dunk fire fighters and police officers at the dunk tank. Children also can take pictures with Sparky the Fire Dog and McGruff the Crime Dog.

New to the safety fair this year is a bike raffle. Wheeler said the idea for the raffle came about two months ago because of a problem with bike thefts, and the not-so-high recovery rate of those bikes.

“What can we do to help the community out, especially an 8-year-old or 9-year-old who has their bike stolen?” Wheeler and the rest of the Elma Police Department wondered.

Their answer was to raffle off five boys bikes and as many as eight girls bikes at the safety fair.

“This is just a way to give back, hoping we can at least bring some good back to the community,” Wheeler said.

Also to be raffled are emergency preparedness kits, which Wheeler said will have the community prepared for, “virtually all emergencies you could think of.”

Wheeler encourages kids who need maintenance done on their bikes or helmets to bring them to the fair so the issues can be addressed and the bikes rode safely and confidently.

The Safety Fair will be held 10 a.m.-3 p.m. on June 24 at the Elma Police Department parking lot.