A host of DC government agencies kicked off the summer season with Mayor Muriel Bowser and more than one thousand residents at the city’s eighth annual Agency-wide Truck Touch Saturday, June 6, at RFK Stadium. The event, hosted by the DC Department of Public Works (DPW), featured many free activities for kids and more than 30 vehicles used to clean and repair streets, fix potholes, change traffic lights, collect refuse, clear snow, vacuum sewers, provide emergency services, administer mobile health care, and more.
The DC Department of Parks and Recreation’s (DPR) “Play Town” provided plenty of activities to keep children and adults occupied, including skating, basketball, Putt-Putt golf and face painting. Free, boxed lunch was offered to children and teens by the Office of the State Superintendent for Education to heighten awareness of the DC Free Summer Meals Program, funded by the US Department of Agriculture.
“DPR has been a great partner of this event,” said DPW Director William O. Howland Howland, Jr. “Between our trucks and the array of activities provided by DPR, the Truck Touch truly offered something for everyone.”
DPW also used the event to unveil five recycling trucks recently wrapped with original works of art and to present a special performance, called the “Truck Touch Ballet,” featuring DPW and DC Department of Transportation employees.
The “Designed to Recycle” initiative, funded by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH), will wrap a total of 10 DPW recycling trucks throughout the summer with work created by local artists to increase awareness and education about recycling and enliven the streets of DC with mobile public art works.
“I have been eagerly anticipating our initiative with the DCCAH and hope the art will engage our citizens in a fruitful discussion about the vital role they play in the city’s sustainability efforts,” said Howland. “Displaying the wrapped trucks and presenting the ‘Truck Touch Ballet’ for the second year in a row gave our employees an opportunity to present the work we do in a way that is fun and engaging. I hope it showed our residents the passion and commitment we have for what we do.”
DC’s truck touch is one of the summer’s most anticipated events and one of the largest in the nation, often drawing as many as 5,000 residents with kids eager to climb in such equipment as packer, sweeper and boom trucks; ride Segways and to get the chance to sit inside a police chopper —the event’s biggest attraction.
The event featured vehicles from the District departments of Public Works, Transportation, Health, Employment Services, Parks and Recreation, Fire and Emergency Medical Services, Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency, the Metropolitan Police Department, and the DC Water and Sewer Authority. Other agencies also were on hand to provide direct services and disseminate information about their services.
Free water was provided to the public courtesy of Safeway and Giant Food.