Brethren & Friends,

Our Child ID Committee and volunteers completed another successful Child ID event at the 2011 Carnaval Festival in San Francisco. This last weekend we were able to meet the challenges of unseasonably cold weather and rain on Saturday with more normal weather on Sunday to process over 560 children during the festival. For those of you who are not familiar with the program, the Child ID Program is sponsored by the California Masonic Foundation (http://www.freemason.org/foundation/childId.htm). It provides free fingerprinting and photo identification for children of all ages. Parents also receive an identification sheet that includes space to record a child’s height, weight, eye and hair color, and distinguishing marks. This sheet will be extremely valuable to authorities if a child ever becomes missing or abducted.

The entire process takes only a minute and no information is ever recorded on the computer equipment. A short video of the process, staring our very own Brother Michael Tarver, can be seen on YouTube.

Since the program began in 1998, more than 800,000 California children have received this important documentation. Mission Lodge No. 169 has been participating since 2002.

The program would not be a success without the help of the volunteers who gave up their time and holiday to provide this valuable service. I would like to personally recognize the following Brethren who volunteered over the weekend.

Saturday:

Dennis Menikheim, Jason Marandas, Hakki Ayverdi, Jim Marshall, Leonard Oakes, Jess Bautista, Danny Dayan, Stephen Buck (and his brother-in-law Milton Garay), Michael Tarver, and Richard San Mames.

Sunday:

Dennis Menikheim, Jason Marandas, Hakki Ayverdi, Jim Marshall, Jess Bautista, Danny Dayan, Stephen Buck (and his brother-in-law Milton Garay), Michael Tarver, Richard San Mames, Juan Zeledon, Garvin Lohman, William Suguitan, Andy Brumana, and Jim Lintner and his wife Annette.

Chairman, Dennis Menikheim and Brother Jason Marandas put in full days of over 12-hours on Saturday & Sunday including setting up the equipment and take down at the end of the event. Brother Hakki Ayverdi helped out almost as much especially with the setup on Saturday.

Photographs taken by myself and Brother Stephen Buck are included below. You may download all of the photographs taken during this event by clicking here (approx. 1gb) or by using the link at the bottom of this page.

Fraternally,
Richard J. Downing, PM
Secretary, Mission Lodge No. 169

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