LEAWOOD ? Try to smash the fluorescent light bulbs from the day-care center at the Jewish Community Center in this Kansas City suburb. Although the glass shatters into tiny pieces, it stays contained inside a surrounding plastic tube.

Pound a hammer into a window, and a protective film keeps the pieces from flying.

That’s because nearly a year ago a group of volunteers — most of them from a nearby company whose business it is to help businesses and insurers control risks — made changes to protect children from breaking glass in the event of natural disaster or terrorism.

It’s part of Project Safeguard, whose chief sponsor is General Electric’s Employers Reinsurance Corp., based in Overland Park.

“Fortunately, we haven’t had to test their efficacy yet,” Jill Maidhof, associate executive director of the Jewish Community Center, said of the special light bulbs and protected windows.

But, she points out, it is a concern. After all, she says, “We’re in tornado alley.”

The special fluorescent light bulb, which can cost two to three times as much as an ordinary fluorescent bulb, and protective window film are available to anyone — for a price. But the bulbs, window film and labor are free to the nonprofit day-care centers Project Safeguard helps.

“I think financially it would have been out of our ballpark,” Maidhof said.

The shatter resistant light bulbs are donated by GE Lighting, while various companies provide the film used to secure windows. Employees with Employers Reinsurance show up to do much of the work, which can take several hours.

General Electric Employers Reinsurance Corp. spokesman John Novaria, left, and Jill Maidhof, associate director of the Jewish Community Center, display a piece of glass coated with a shatterproof film at the center's day care in Leawood. The center had all its windows coated with the film and had special shatterproof light bulbs installed as part of Project Safeguard, a program to help protect children from breaking glass in the event of a natural disaster or terrorism.

“This is a project that we are very proud of,” said Dean Davison, a spokesman for Employers Reinsurance “It is highly motivating for our teams to do one of these retrofits.”

“Quite frankly, it’s a lot of fun,” Davison said. “The kids get a kick out of us doing it.”

In three years, Project Safeguard has outfitted 18 day-care centers in the Kansas City area, Fort Wayne, Ind., Chicago, Homestead, Fla., and London, Davison said.

“We’re not gonna do all — whatever it is, 10,000 or 50,000 — day-care centers in the U.S., but we’re trying to set an example of these are some simple things you can do,” Davison said.

Project Safeguard began in 2000, he said, after Employers Reinsurance, which encourages its employees to do community service, came across some stories about Aren Almon-Kok, whose daughter, Baylee Almon, was one of 19 children killed in the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building.

The 1-year-old girl was recognized worldwide after being photographed in firefighter Chris Fields’ arms after the blast.

Employers Reinsurance partnered with Aren Almon-Kok’s Protecting People First Foundation on Project Safeguard. When Project Safeguard volunteers install light bulbs and security film, Almon-Kok is there to present the day-care centers with a safety award.

Eric Cote, manager of the Protecting People First Foundation, said Employers Reinsurance had been “the leader in the insurance industry in embracing the foundation’s mission.”

“We think it’s very important that the insurance industry do whatever they can do to promote hazard mitigation. … So we are grateful to their leadership on the issue,” Cote said.