Lt. Ryan Holder with the Pemiscot County Sheriff's Department, left, and Dunklin County Prosecuting Attorney, Jonce Chidister, right, volunteer to help families at the Caruthersville Armory where a Masonic Lodge event designed to protect Missouri's children was recently held. [Click to enlarge]

More than 100 children in Pemiscot County and surrounding communities will have additional protection in the event they run away, become lost, or in a worse case scenario, become abducted due to criminal activity.

The Pemiscot County Masonic Lodge recently sponsored an event that catered to more than 100 children in the area and surrounding communities, including their parents where local authorities and volunteers introduced a program known as MoChip or the Missouri Child Identification Program.

The program, according to the Missouri Masons, was designed to protect children from birth to approximately 21 years of age by having them register their identifying information in a database that can be accessed in the event a child goes missing.

Volunteers collected the childrens' pictures for a photo identification card, fingerprints, and a DNA sample to be added to the MoChip database.

According to Pemiscot County Sheriff Tommy Greenwell, Pemiscot County had to be placed on a lengthy waiting list before being able to introduce the program to the community.

Greenwell said it took approximately one year on the waiting list before Pemiscot County children were able to benefit from the project, but that the wait was very worth while.

"The program is well thought of by Missouri residents and law enforcement all across the state of Missouri," Greenwell noted.

The MoChip program provides prevention and abduction education awareness at no cost to parents and guardians and encourages them to not allow their children to become a part of the troubling missing child statistics.

To view the latest updates on this project or read the most frequently asked questions families and communities ask regarding the program visit http://www.mochip.org/content/section/3/....