Police sirens whooped and blasts from a fire engine horn rang through the parking lot at Hawthorne Elementary School on Sept. 30.

A partnership between Commitment to Community, Mexico Parks and Recreation and Hawthorne Elementary revived a classic community event that had fallen off over the years – Things That Go.

All of the vehicles set up by Mexico Parks and Recreation for students and their families to enjoy were the finale of a larger, full-circle community event that began in the Hawthorne Elementary School library with a book fair.

“We like to promote that reading but also those other resources too that the community has,” Hawthorne Elementary School Principal Katie Lehnen said.

Down the hall in the gymnasium was a community resource fair organized by C2C.

“We’re reaching a lot of people because we also opened it up to the community,” Lehnen said. “We sent information to McMillan, Eugene Field, St. Brendan’s and also Southside Christian School, so we tried to reach all those different educational avenues.”

The fair featured community resource representatives such as Arthur Center Community Health, Mexico Activity and Nutrition Center, Mexico Area YMCA, Central Missouri Community Action, Adult Crisis and Intervention Services, Compass Health, Mexico Noon Lions Club, Audrain County Health Department and Audrain County Shelter Resource Coalition.

“Our main goal at Hawthorne, and I think Mexico Public Schools, is to help our students be the best versions of themselves,” Lehnen said. “We try to provide support and resources, academics, everything that we can to help the student and the families reach their highest potential.”

Lehnen said she thought they had an amazing turnout – especially when compared to their previous community resource event. “Things That Go,” in particular, brought a lot of families through the resource fair.

“That was one of the draws that we thought would bring our kiddos here with their families,” Lehnen said. “We wanted to revitalize that because who doesn’t love a vehicle that you can sit in and honk a horn and make a siren go off?”

The event featured fire trucks and police cars from the Mexico Public Safety Department, United Credit Union’s mobile banking van, a school bus, City of Mexico street cleaners, motorcycles, the Tyler Shaw Racing racecar and more.

“Things That Go” wasn’t brought back just for the fun of it, Hawthorne’s C2C building representative Tad Dobbins explained. The event put family in front of community resources and helped build valuable social skills in young children.

“That’s exactly why I took this position at the elementary level,” Dobbins said. “Not only can you help the kid, but you can also help the families so that they won't have some of these barriers further down the road.”