The Just Kids Safety Club

This photograph from April 25, 1928 shows a city policeman escorting children across Roncesvalles Avenue from the northeast corner of Fern.


Today, this is the location of the Hot Oven Bakery, but back then it was home to a grocery store owned by William Forster, who lived in the attached residence at 190 Fern Avenue.

The Just Kids Safety Club was established in the spring of 1928 based on a King Features Syndicate comic strip The Globe was running at the time called “Just Kids.” In exchange for a pledge to “always look up and down before crossing the street,” some 300,000 children in Ontario alone received a membership button featuring one of the characters from the strip.

Source: City of Toronto Archives, Globe and Mail fonds.