Kids Are 1st, a 501 (c) (3) organization's MISSION is to create an awareness of how to keep children, teens and families safe.
Kids Are 1st helps save the lives of children by teaching, checking, and promoting PROPER child passenger safety seat USE and providing Child Identification Kits- one of the most important tools USED BY law enforcement to AID in the recovery of a missing child. Kids Are 1st addresses risks to teen drivers due to DISTRACTIVE DRIVING such as TEXTING, NOT WEARING SEAT BELTS, DRINKING AND DRIVING, SPEEDING, USING A CELL PHONE, AND CARRYING OTHER TEEN PASSENGERS.
Kids Are 1st will continue with our action plans which include interventions designed to educate and change behaviors to reduce crashes, save lives and address all safety concerns for families and their children.
Kids are 1st needs your support now more then ever. Car crashes are the # 1 killer of children and teens. Our Child car seat program saves lives but without funding it is not possible to reach the children who need us the most. We are in unprecedented times as states and cities have cut funding drastically. Kids Are 1st has been stepping up and installing as many seats as possible within our limited means.
Foundations and corporations who have historically funded important non-profit organization such as ours have all but stopped giving grants due to the recent developments in the economy.
Here are some recent quotes from news articles which explain the importance of hands on safety events and educational safety programs.
Plastic Surgeon Frank Ryan's Needless Death Due to Texting
Heidi Montag’s controversial plastic surgeon Dr. Frank Ryan, committed one of the newest cardinal sins of driving — and it cost him his life. Ryan was texting and driving.
The Beverly Hills doctor died Aug. 16, 2010 when his car ran off the winding Pacific Coast Highway in California, and plunged down a gully, overturning and killing him instantly.
Frank’s ex-girlfriend, Charmaine Blake confirmed that police told her he was texting while driving.
CANADA - The lone survivor of a plane crash near Golden is a little girl who endured five hours in the wreckage, suspended upside down in a car seat that apparently saved her life. From the Vancouver Province: October 30, 2007, Good Morning America ABC News
ANAHEIM – The 10-month-old boy of 21-year-old Natalie Cantón, who died Thursday when her vehicle flew off the Riverside (91) Freeway before it plunged nearly 100 feet, will be released from the hospital today, a family member said.
Cantón, of Chino, died at the scene. Her baby, Aiden Koch, survived. He was secured in a rear-facing car seat and was virtually unharmed, California Highway Patrol officers reported.
CHP Officer Jennifer Hink said the car seat most likely saved the child's life.
"Car safety seats are made for high-impact crashes," Hink said. "When the seat is secured correctly, the car seat becomes a part of the car. The child cannot move."
February 16, 2007 The Orange County Register
LAS VEGAS - Free Child Car Seat Inspection Checkpoint Saves Lives
A lesson that comes too late for too many local families -- like the family of a 14-month-old baby girl who lost both of her legs in an accident last April when she became embedded in the windshield of her mother's car. The child wasn't restrained.
Installing a car seat properly is not easy. It takes 40 hours of formal instruction for someone to become a certified child safety seat technician. Alyson McCarthy, Reporter
March 4, 2007
TENNESEE - A woman died today in a two-car crash on John Bragg Highway around 1:50 p.m.
The deceased was not wearing her seat belt, according to Trooper Boyd. The infant was properly restrained in a safety seat. [email protected]
Eight-month-old Cykele Collins, of Hammond, died at Ochsner Foundation Hospital in Jefferson on Saturday, two days after he was critically injured in a crash on Interstate 12 in Tangipahoa Parish, State Police said.
The infant was sitting unrestrained in the lap of a passenger. March 06, 2007 Paul Rioux
As a Professor of Surgery and Pediatrics, and Director of Trauma and Burn Services at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., every day I see the pain and suffering of kids with injuries. Many parents ask me “Why did this happen to my child? What could I have done?”
It’s astonishing that unintentional injuries are still a leading killer of children in most nations, with more than a million children ages 14 and under dying each year. In a recent study conducted by SAFE KIDS Worldwide, we found that within our member country network alone, 279,000 died from traffic-related injuries.
Unintentional injury is a public health issue with significant economic consequences.
In the United States, injury is the leading cause of medical spending for children ages 5 to 14.
- Every $1 spent on a child safety seat saves $32 in direct medical costs and other costs to society
The Vaccine That Prevents “Accidents”
Martin R. Eichelberger, M.D.
If a child is missing, law enforcement authorities can use the child's completed I.D. Kit to scan the child's fingerprints into the National Crime Information Center database. These fingerprints can then be used to help locate the child in a variety of ways. For example:
- John, age 12, is abducted by his father, who is divorcing his mother and believes the court will not grant him visitation. John's father takes him from Boston to Los Angeles. For the next four years, John and his father have absolutely no contact with John's mother. When John turns 16, he goes to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get his driver's license. The DMV scans his fingerprint, which is entered into the DMV's database. From there, it is automatically sent to the California Crime Information Center and the National Crime Information Center. The fingerprint matches the record of a missing child in Boston, and John is reunited with his mother.
- Sarah, age 14, runs away from her home in Dallas. She has been gone for six months and is forced to turn to shoplifting to continue her flight. Her crimes are not large - a loaf of bread here, a carton of milk there - but eventually she is caught and fingerprinted in Tucson, Ariz. When her fingerprints are sent to the National Crime Information Center, they show that Sarah is a runaway from Dallas. The police are notified, and Sarah is reunited with her parents.
KIDS ARE 1ST needs your donations to continue our safety day events that save lives. You can use your charge card on secure PayPal (PayPal.com) to
or you can mail a check to
Kids Are 1st
PO Box 642164
Los Angeles, CA. 90064
All donations are tax deductible as we are a 501 (c) (3) non-profit, a tax letter will be provided for your donation. If your donation is receved before Jan. 1 your deduction can be for the 2010 tax year.
Please help us continue to save kid, teens and their families’s lives.
Your donation to Kids Are 1st is tax deductible
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