MasoniChIP Child Identification clinic

Bill Bowick | Apr 29, 2010

Betty Anne Blyth, Sharbot Lake & District Lions, and Kathleen White, Sharbot Lake Royal Canadian Legion, operate a station.

On average, there are 55 missing children reports filed in Ontario every day. Fortunately, in the vast majority of cases, the child is not at serious risk and is found within hours.

In those cases where there is serious risk, it is extremely important that information about

the child be distributed to the authorities as quickly as possible. This is the key to a successful recovery.

On April 24, Masons from Frontenac Lodge in Sharbot Lake got together with members of the Sharbot Lake Lions Club, Sharbot Lake Legion and the local OPP detachment to hold a child identification clinic at Sharbot Lake High School.

The program, called MasoniChIP, gives parents a fast and easy way to get critical information into the hands of police if their child goes missing. Vital statistics, finger prints, a video clip and a voice clip are all captured on a computer disk, which is given back to the parent. In an emergency, the parent can give this to the police and within minutes have pertinent information in every police station and border crossing in North America. The process also allows for the taking of a dental imprint and DNA sample and staff from the Sharbot Lake Dental office, also volunteers, came out to do that.

MasoniChIP is operated by Masonic organizations in a number of US states and,

for the last four years, by the Masonic Grand Lodge of Canada in the Province of Ontario. About 25,000 children have been processed in Ontario so far. We hope that these are 25,000 children who are just a little bit safer. The Sharbot Lake clinic has the honour of processing the youngest child in Ontario – three-day-old Brayden Gable.

The only thing kept by the clinic operators is the parental consent form. All information

is erased from the computer when the disc is written. The disk and dental imprint are given to the parents.

We hope they will never need it.