The Taste of Soul (TOS) Family Festival is just one week away! As the TOS Nation counts down the days till Los Angeles’ largest street festival, local safety and medical providers are working tirelessly to ensure that Taste of Soul remains one of safest places to be in the city!
For the past 12 years, Crenshaw Blvd. has brought out over 350,000 people in attendance for the highly anticipated event. Although TOS is known for its’ amazing food, desserts, live entertainment, and community resource booths, it is the festival’s local medical and safety providers who help make each year one for the books.
Recently, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD), the California Highway Patrol (CHP), and private security firm Able Solutions, have been working together to coordinate a well-organized safety plan to help keep the Taste of Soul attendees, vendors, artists and workers safe.
For decades, the LAPD motto has been, “to protect and serve.” This year, the department plans to do just that at the annual TOS festival.
“The Los Angeles Police Department will be deploying sufficient resources to the event to address any issues that might arise. We encourage everyone to come out and enjoy this special day,” said LAPD Southwest Area Commanding Officer Captain Lee Sands.
All event goers are encouraged to report any suspicious activity to the ‘Information’ booths located on each block along Crenshaw Blvd. or to any block ambassadors wearing colored TOS t-shirts, so that they can dispatch the appropriate teams.
Below are the TOS information booths listed by color:
- The yellow block has one booth
- The blue Block has two booths
- The Red Block has two booths
- The Pink Block has one booth
While LAPD oversees the safety of the event, LAFD is handling the full operation of the Taste of Soul medical plan with one goal in mind, “providing a safe environment and highest quality medical care to attendees at the event.”
“The Medical Action Plan is the combination of coordinated efforts of the event promoters, Los Angeles Fire Department, Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles Sheriffs, California Highway Patrol, and community health partners including Kaiser Permanente, Martin Luther King Jr Hospital, Watts Health Foundation, and WKing Health Care Group,” said Los Angeles City Fire Department captain, paramedic, and lead officer of the TOS Medical Action Plan, Rico A. Gross.
On top of each medical station will be red flags that can be seen from afar. Each station will have California state certified medical doctors (MD) and nurses. Adjacent to each medical station will be a cooling station for patients to rest. Only people who are being treated can use these areas. The cooling stations are not for general public use.
If at any time during the event you or someone you know is experiencing a medical emergency, please visit any one of the TOS medical stations for emergency treatment.
More serious injuries or medical problems will be moved to the event’s main medical facility #3, which is operated by Kaiser Permanente.
From finger licking food and desserts, to Crenshaw’s premier entertainment, Taste of Soul has you covered. In order to continue making the annual family festival one of the largest and safest event in Los Angeles, Bakewell Media asks that all event goers adhere to the festival’s do’s and don’ts list, which can be found on the Taste of Soul website.
The TOS mobile app is your go-to event guide for the latest information on vendors, stage locations and entertainment, transportation and parking needs, shuttles, street closures, locations of medical stations and information booths, and partners and sponsors information.
Get the latest TOS updates and alerts straight to your mobile device and enter for a chance to win a 2018 Hyundai Sonata by downloading the Taste of Soul mobile app. Get social with Taste of Soul! Follow the festival’s Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter pages @tasteofsoulla and visit www.tasteofsoul.org.
