The Londonderry Women’s Club conducted fingerprinting of students at Moose Hill Kindergarten last week.
The free program is a service the Women’s Club has offered the community for more than two decades, according to member Trish Herrmann, who was helping the little ones press their fingers into inkpads and make fingerprints they took home to their parents.
“We do the fingerprinting for the parents to keep on file so that, heaven forbid, something should happen, they can provide it to the police,” Herrmann said.
Around 230 kindergarteners, 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds were fingerprinted.
Herrmann said that in the past, the Women’s Club fingerprinted children in first grade, traveling from school to school to complete the program.
With the kindergarten and pre-kindergarten now housed in one school at Moose Hill, the club was able to complete fingerprinting for all the children in a morning and afternoon session on Feb. 17.
Hermann said the process they use to fingerprint the children isn’t complicated.
Parents whose children were not fingerprinted by the Women’s Club can make fingerprints at home using a standard inkpad.
Londonderry Police Det. Chris Olson said it’s helpful in cases where a child is missing to have a photo identification card with the child’s fingerprints, description and a photograph of the child so that they can get that information out to the public quickly.