AUBURN – Advocates for Children, the Maine Safe Kids Coalition Androscoggin Chapter, the Child Health Center, Home Depot and Maine Masons joined forces in Androscoggin County to offer free child identification and car seat safety checks. The program was held Saturday, Aug. 7, in honor of National Kids Day at the Home Depot parking lot.

The local Masonic chapter was able to ensure that 99 kids participated in the CHIP program and their families received a kit to take home. The program is a comprehensive child recovery and identification program.

The program provides, at no cost to parents, a videotaped interview, fingerprinting, a tooth print with salivary scent tracer and DNA and a DNA cheek swab.

The Child Health Center offers monthly fitting stations in Auburn and Rumford and a variety of checkups sponsored by the Maine Coalition for SAFEKIDS. The events give those who regularly transport children an opportunity to ensure they do so in the safest possible manner.

Lloyd Murphy, a senior child passenger certified technician, represented the Maine Coalition for SAFE KIDS and local certified child passenger safety technicians Patricia Valeriani from the Child Health Center and Suzanne Cook, coordinator for Maine SAFE KIDS, helped with the inspections.

Murphy said, “It was a productive day. We inspected 24 seats. We did not find any seats which were correctly installed. We helped one family who was expecting that their newborn would be safe. We were also able to supply one family with a new seat for a child who had outgrown their current seat but was not old enough to be moved into a belt-positioning booster.”

State law requires that all children who weigh at least 40 pounds, but less than 80, or are less than 8 years of age, be properly secured in a federally approved child restraint system.

The Child Health Center offers monthly fitting stations at the Auburn Police Department from 2 to 6 p.m. on the second Monday of every month and in Mexico on the first Friday of every month. Those wishing more information can call Patricia Valeriani at the Child Health Center, 743-7035, for Oxford County, or 782-5437, for Androscoggin County.