Kid’s Safety Fair helps kids be safe and have fun

The Kid’s Safety Fair presented by the U.S. Marshals Museum was held Friday (May 17)  for the purpose of helping children be safe and letting them have some fun. Tents and tables were set up all over Ross Pendergraft park ranging from companies to local authorities.

Arvest Bank was the host sponsor for the event held between 3 and 6 p.m.

At the U.S. Marshals Museum booth, the starting point for the Kids Safety Fair, people could sign up and receive a card that had the name of every booth. As the kids made the rounds each booth had a stamp and would stamp off their name. Once the card was completed the kid could return to the U.S. Marshal’s Museum booth and receive a free t-shirt.

Museum officials plan to start construction on the museum around September 2014. Plans include 20,000 square feet of exhibit space, teaching spaces where hand-on learning will take place, theater, hall of honor, gallery, pop culture pedestals and a museum store. This $50 million building will hopefully take only 16-18 months to build and be completed sometime in 2016. The site for the building is on the Arkansas Riverfront in downtown Fort Smith.

Their funds and pledges equal about $20 million. Jessica Hayes, vice president of museum operations said “we are not doing fundraisers for donations”  but rather to raise awareness and “we have some events planned later in the year.”

One of the more interesting booths at the Kids Safety Fair was the DNA LifePrint. Children could have their picture and finger/hand prints taken electronically and then burned onto a disk. They were then given a case for the disk containing a mouth swab kit to send off so their DNA was kept on record. After the swab is completed, it is sent off to John Walsh Foundation for storage.

Sean Wallace with the Sebastian County Sheriff Mobile Incident Command Center told about the events leading up to finding missing person Kelton Martin on April 29 of this year.

“The mother brought the LifePrint DNA kit to us first thing. It told us the kid was asthmatic and pulled up all his information,” Wallace said.

Kelton was walking from one house to another and as it got dark he got lost in the woods and wondered too far in one direction. The mobile center was there, mapping out the areas searched with real time aerial maps and touch screen monitors. Kelton was found just in time by officers on 4-wheelers with EMS not far off as he was having an asthma attack. The mobile command center is set up with supplies for officers to go on 72 plus hour shifts, and has maps of roughly 125 miles around Fort Smith loaded into it’s database for quick access.

The Morgan Nick Foundation (morgannick.com) and the Guidance Center tents were next to each other. The Morgan Nick Foundation helps kids that are missing/exploited. The Guidance Center provides comprehensive array of behavioral health care to individuals and families in Western Arkansas and had bracelets, magnets, and a staff to make custom key chains.

Promoting the rarely touched on topic of Internet security was a booth from the office of U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, R-Rogers, and a booth from the Sebastian County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. Womack staffer Chris Bader handed out pamphlets and informed people how the Internet is the new way for strangers to kidnap kids. Cathy McKenzie and Regina Jones at the Prosecuting Attorney booth gave crosswords and pamphlets on proper Internet safety and the difference between touching kids in a good way and a bad way.

The Fort Smith Fire Department had a booth as well handing out books and stickers and informing on general fire safety. The Fort Smith Fire Department also had two fire trucks that were open and they escorted kids through them, explaining what they do on their job and how everything functions.

Arvest employees grilled hot dogs and served them with chips and drinks. Their booth was located in front of green grass where people would sit to eat.

The Cox Communications booth had two events. The first event was painting, with two boards with a few pre-painted images and kids were allowed to paint whatever they wanted on them. The other event was hair coloring. Husband and wife Eduardo and Anabel Diaz used hair coloring spray to make sure all the kids at the fair had brightly colored hair.