MoCHIP Program seeks to identify every child

Tara Stutsman came to the Missouri State Fair to cheer her family on in the tractor pull competition. But, she left with an invaluable tool to increase her daughter’s safety.

Stutsman, 24, of Brashear was one of hundreds of people to visit the Missouri Child Identification Program, or MoCHIP, booth sponsored by the Missouri Freemasons. According to MoCHIP State Coordinator Nicholas Cichielo, the program is a charitable initiative sponsored by the Masonic Children’s Foundation to aid in the identification and recovery of missing children. The program provides parents the opportunity to create a kit of identifying materials for their child free of charge.

Stutsman led her 7-year-old daughter, Erial, through several stations where volunteers measured her height, snapped a few digital pictures, scanned her fingerprints and took a dental impression. The volunteers then created a computer disc that included full-color pictures, a complete set of digital fingerprints and information on the youngster including hair and eye color and other distinguishing features.

The final stop for Erial was having a toothprint dental impression wafer created. The wafer also serves as a DNA and canine scent sample, Cichielo said.

The final product is a sealed kit that includes the disc, a fingerprint card, a physical description and the dental impression. The purpose of the kit is to provide critical information to the public and to law enforcement in the event a child goes missing. Cichielo said the information contained on the disc can be uploaded to the Amber Alert system within a minute and a half.

“I know of six children who have been returned to their parents because of the MoCHIP program,” Cichielo said.

 “The (MoCHIP) process was easy,” Stutsman said. “I’ve always had a fear of something happening to my daughter but now I can rest easy.”

Cichielo said all the information is deleted at the end of each day.

“We don’t keep any information on the children,” he said. “The only thing we keep is a permission slip on file.”
According to mochip.org, 953 children had been identified in the first six days of the Missouri State Fair. Grand Master Rocky E. Weaver of Buckner said he had hoped for high numbers during their first year at the fair.

“I traveled to Massachusetts with my wife and saw this program at a county fair,” Weaver said, “and I had a vision and saw us doing this at the Missouri State Fair.” Weaver said the program was initiated in 2004 in Rogersville, but really kicked off in 2005. “Since then we’ve identified over 83,000 kids,” Weaver said.

And it takes a lot of help to run the program.

“The Masonic brothers and wives have jumped behind this program,” Cichielo said. “We have 400 volunteers from all over Missouri working this fair.”

Cichielo said the program is designed to identify children ages newborn to 21 years.

“Our goal is to identify every child in Missouri,” Cichielo said.