Keeping Kids Safe

CHAMPAIGN - Better safe than sorry was the theme safety officials tried to stress, especially in a world where children can turn up missing at any time. "To have to worry about your child 75 feet away from you in your front yard disappearing literally in 30 seconds is just you know unbelievable." says parent Eric Wilson But those fears were put to rest thanks to some hard working finger printing volunteers.

Volunteer Iris Price said "What we have the kids do is we have them come here, we get their photos, we get their left and right fingerprint and then put that information in special software we have that can print it all out on a piece of paper." Parents can put other types of information on that piece of paper too, like their child's height, weight and even their birthday.

All in all parents and guardians were more than happy to take advantage of Saturday's free fingerprinting, but as local parent Eric Wilson says, obviously he hopes he'll never have to use it. "It took us 45 minutes to get through this line but you know what, 45 minutes that could save hours or days or the life of your child...what's that worth?"