This past weekend my office participated in the Fairfax VolunteerFest, a local program held in conjunction with Volunteer Fairfax and National Make a Difference Day. Throughout the County forty six activities occurred, including a food drive, a children’s winter clothing collection, a book sale, computer recycling and removing invasive plant species from one of our local parks. Over a thousand volunteers mobilized to serve community needs.

For our part, my office staff and our high school volunteers spent Saturday at Oakton Library putting together child safety ID cards for children. Parents would fill out basic information about their children (name, height, weight, hair color, eye color), we would take a headshot of each child and then we would laminate the identification cards for the parents. The result was cards that parents can carry in their wallets that summarizes important data on their children. We started this process at last year’s Volunteer Fest and the program has been a big success.

Every twenty seconds in America, a child is reported missing. One of the most valuable tools for law enforcement when searching for a child is a current photograph. Time spent trying to find a recent photograph is wasted time when police could otherwise be searching for a child.

I want to give thanks to everyone who participated in the events over the weekend, particularly the parents who took time to update their child’s ID card.