Named in honor of a beloved Trenton firefighter and longtime Mercer County fire marshal, the Capt. John T. Dempster, Sr. Fire Service Training Center is home to Mercer County's fire academy, the county's office of emergency management and the county's emergency communications center. The facility is located on Lawrence Station Road between Quakerbridge Road and Bakers Basin Road.
The facility's main building houses three classrooms, a large auditorium, a library, a seminar room, a kitchen and lunchroom area and a three-bay garage for fire apparatus. The 450,000-square-foot training ground includes a high-rise tower with a room for live fire training, a residential building with first- and second-floor burn rooms, a pond for water drafting and a special-operations training area.
Volunteer and career firefighters from throughout Mercer County train here, practicing firefighting and rescue techniques. All beginning firefighters complete a 120-hour, state-certified basic firefighting class, while veteran firefighters return for regular classes on a variety of topics. For a full list of course offerings, visit the website and download the catalog. The center is also used by police and other emergency services personnel for various training.
The Dempster Center is a campus of Mercer County Community College. All of the college's Fire Science Technology courses are taught at the center.
The Wayne Township Civic Center offers meeting space for local organizations. It is located in the old Preakness School and houses the administrative offices for the Wayne Adult School, as well as a gymnasium.
The borough's recreation department offers lots of joint programs with the township. Information on those programs is available on the Web site, but the department also administers its own tennis courts, municipal pool, playgrounds and parks.
Such sites include Shepard Kollock Park, Memorial Park, Garden Park, Stanley Park and the Lum Avenue Field. The borough's municipal pool is in Memorial Park.
The department's director is Carol Nauta.