Families can leave the North Bend Block Party with more than memories—they can come away with tools for safety: My I.D. Club cards.

Families can create free laminated identification cards for children, up to age 18, noon to 8 p.m. at the party.

My ID Club is a free program of the King County Police Union, in partnership with the North Bend Montessori school.

Most parents don’t carry pictures of their children in their wallets, says Bob Casey, program director for My ID Club with King County. So, the ID cards can give parents as well as police and other emergency responders a tool to locate and help children.

The cards take only minutes to create and fill out, with 17 fields of information including medical needs parents’ contact information.

Parents get a wallet-size version to carry, as identification for their children.

Older kids can carry them in case they’re hurt or lost when they’re out on their own.

“The cards are great to pas along to a friend or relative who may have your kids for the day,” says Casey.

The MY ID CLUB program was created in 1997 in Seattle as a community service program of the King County Police Union. The goal was to issue photograph/fingerprint identification cards to all children under the age of 16, free of charge.  Since then, they have completed over 1,700 events in 55 different cities, issuing over 400,000 ID cards.

To learn more, visit http://myidclub.org/