COLUMBIA, S.C. – Those child ID kids, first debuted as a CUNA-sponsored goodwill project during the 2004 national elections, are assuming new importance as a fallout from Hurricane Katrina, according to the South Carolina Credit Union League. League officials said the ID kits, produced by the American Football Coaches Association and purchased by CUs for free distribution at schools here, are proving useful in helping reunite Katrina evacuees. It seems media reports in South Carolina have highlighted cases of missing children, abductions and family separations The league, spurred on by Founders FCU Chairman Bruce Brumfield, began last year buying up the kits – 670,000 in all – and storing them at sites across the state including vacant branches, rented facilities and league offices. For weeks league staffers as well as executives from participating CUs have met with scores of local, district and state school officials to arrange packaging, labeling and distribution of the kits to South Carolina schools. Each kit contains inkless fingerprinting materials, self-laminating ID cards as well as information documents including personal details and DNA collection swabs from a child's cheek. League officials said they hope to complete the job of distribution in March or April with 100,000 of the kits now distributed. One CU, Georgetown Kraft, noted in a press release that its staff, including its president Robbie Jordan, "hand-delivered over 10,000 of the kits to elementary, middle and high schools in Georgetown County." "We are excited about being a part of this very worthy program," said Nikki Ewing, marketing director for the CU. Through the program, "Georgetown County families have been given the proper tools to help properly record their child's basic identification traits." [email protected]