U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Office of Field Operations employees at the Hidalgo/Pharr/Anzalduas Port of Entry hosted its annual “Bring Your Child To Work Day” event. The event stems from the officially sponsored national program by the Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Foundation.
Bring Your Child to Work Day is an essential part of CBP’s Diversity and Inclusion Program, designed to familiarize children with the CBP mission and the diversity of our work and workforce.
The event, held at the Anzalduas International Bridge on Thursday, April 20, brought young girls and boys currently attending school in the first to 12th grades to the port to experience the work that their loved ones take upon on a daily basis.
The theme for this year was “Count on me! “Which reminds our children that they can count on friends, teammates, family, mentors, and teachers to not let them down, and in return that they can be counted on as well.
Port Director Severiano Solis delivered the official welcome and recognized all the employees present and praised the children who attended the event to learn about the CBP mission and what their family members do.
“It is great that the children can experience first-hand what they’re loved ones do every day to keep our country secure,” Solis said.
This year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Field Operations, Air and Marine Operations, Office of Border Patrol, and local fire and police departments participated in the event.
Approximately 60 CBP employees/parents, and over 235 family members participated in this year’s event. CBP OFO treated the children, parents and other guests to a variety of demonstrations of CBP skills.
This included a CBP K-9 presentation which helped demonstrate the valuable contributions our four-legged friends make to the CBP mission, a non-intrusive imaging technology (NII) demonstration, a CBP defensive tactics demonstration utilizing a padded “Red Man” suit, CBP agriculture specialist presentations, a U.S. Border Patrol riverine vessel, all-terrain vehicles (ATV), horse patrol, and a CBP Air and Marine (AMO) helicopter exhibits.
The defensive tactics portion continues to be a preferred demonstration, as the children are allowed to interact with the “Red Man” utilizing a soft baton to strike and use verbal commands to subdue the alleged bad guy.
Everyone enjoyed watching the AMO helicopter hover and once it landed safely, families could briefly board the aircraft and parents could photograph their kids.
Another favorite was the paint-gun section, where kids were allowed to shoot paint-balls at targets under the supervision of CBP officers.
Throughout the course of the day, attendees enjoyed music, and lots of fun activities for the kids, including bounce houses, dunk tank, dart throw, ring toss, potato sack race and many other friendly competitions which earned the children small prizes.
(Learn More about Take Your Sons and Daughters to Work Day, courtesy of The Education Network and YouTube)
Hidalgo CBP Explorers provided assistance throughout the day and provided information about the Explorer program to the children in attendance.
Refreshments, snacks, treats and lunch were provided throughout the event.
The event allowed the children to discover the wide variety of jobs within CBP, and inspire them to strive to achieve their full potential.
Children were exposed to some of the activities performed by their parents, aunts/uncles or grandparents at work, providing a clearer image of CBP’s mission towards protecting our country.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is the unified border agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the management, control and protection of our nation’s borders at and between the official ports of entry.
CBP is charged with keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the country while enforcing hundreds of U.S. laws.
