JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A program, designed to save kids’ lives, will now be available year-round in Jacksonville.
Operation Kidsafe is opening a child safety center in Avondale. It is located inside the Alan Himmelreich Allstate Insurance Agency.
“I saw it as a great opportunity for me to protect my daughter and then I saw we could expand that to the overall community as well,” Alan Himmelreich explained.
The Child Safety Center will offer free digital fingerprinting and photos for parents to have on hand in case of an emergency. The one-page document is called an ‘Amber Alert Passport.’ It is free and private. It has a blank space for parents to write-in personal information about their child.
“The great thing is there is no database,” Himmelreich said. “There’s actually no record whatsoever minus the fingerprint and the photo that we give to the parent, there’s no record past that.”
The document can be used to quickly help police if there is ever an emergency.
“Probably the number one driver in terms of keeping children safe is how fast we can get out and look for them,” Himmelreich said.
The program was started 18-years-ago by founder, Mark Bott. Since it started, the program’s helped protect more than 1 million kids. Bott worked with ‘America’s Most Wanted’ host, John Walsh, to start the program.
A grand opening event will be held on Friday at 10 a.m. at 3576 St. Johns Avenue.
