By Matt Pouncy

Kid Find program aims to make things easier when locating missing children at the stampede

Jul 26, 2018 | 4:59 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB — The Stampede is one of the biggest weekends of the year in Medicine Hat, with thousands of people heading to the exhibition grounds.

For families with young children, all the excitement could lead to them getting lost in the mix.

The police, along with the Medicine Hat Safe Community Association have teamed up again this year to make sure that if something happens, they can find your child quickly.

For the past five years, the Kid Find Program has reunited families after getting lost on the grounds.

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Sergeant Mike Fischer, with the Medicine Hat Police Service’s community safety unit, says the sign up process is easy and free.

“We’ll take a photo of the youth, and we’ll have the youth hold up a little white board with the information of the parent along with it,” said Fischer. “If they get separated, we have the parent’s phone number, as well as the photo of the youth.”

Fischer says that photo is kept on file, and both the parent, and child receive corresponding wristbands.

The process is designed to make the search easier for the officers who now have a picture of the child they are looking for.

“It’s great to have this, to be able to find him if he does get lost,” said one parent.

“It’s fantastic! We’re very excited to have it because unfortunately we can’t always keep track of these guys in a big crowd so it’s very helpful,” said another parent.

The database gets wiped every night so parents don’t have to worry about the information they share being kept.

The booths are open from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. everyday at both entrances to the Stampede grounds.

Fischer says last year they had 2,500 people sign up and he expects the numbers to climb this year.

“It’s growing in popularity, so hopefully that number will go up this year. Yesterday we had about 430. Today, and tomorrow we’re going to look at around 700, 800, so our numbers will go up,” said Fischer.

There were five kids reported missing last night, and all five children were wearing wristbands.

Ashley MacDonald with the Medicine Hat Safe Community Association, says it’s an improvement over past years.

“Most parents always come up, and say oh I just love this, this is the best,” said MacDonald. “Last night we had five children go missing. Last year at the stampede we had 52, and out of the 52 we had 22 that were not registered.”

The program can also be a great learning tool for children on where they can go to find help.

“We know at least if that happens here the boys now know where to go that they’ll be safe and we know where to go find them,” said one parent.