There will be fire trucks outside McLane Elementary School in West Bend this afternoon as firefighters and local business leaders take part in the National Child ID Program.
The Child ID kits will be distributed to students in the West Bend school District in kindergarten through fourth grade as part of an initiative sponsored by the Green Bay Packers, the Wisconsin Professional Firefighters and the American Football Coaches Association.
West Bend Mutual Insurance is sponsoring the kit distribution locally to assist the statewide effort of protecting nearly one million children in Wisconsin.
Kevin Steiner, CEO of West Bend Mutual will attend the distribution, along with members of the local Fire Department.
The Child ID Kit contains fingerprinting materials, DNA collection swabs, and other resources to allow parents and guardians to easily record information about their children on cards that are kept at their homes to be shared with authorities if ever needed in order to locate a missing child.
The National Child Identification Program is a community-service initiative dedicated to providing parents and guardians with a tool they can use to help protect their children.
Launched by the AFCA in 1997 with a goal of fingerprinting 20 million children nationwide, the program has exceeded expectations with more than 38 million kits being distributed making it the largest child identification effort ever conducted.
In 2005, Nekoosa Coated Paper became the exclusive provider of fingerprint materials for the Child ID Program.
Photo courtesy Gatewaynews.com