DARCARS DNA Events Draw 1,400 Vigilant Parents

DARCARS DNA Events Draw 1,400 Vigilant Parents

For their efforts in an area-first program to offer free DNA samples to parents of elementary school children, DARCARS dealerships were featured in The Washington Postês Health section April 2. The program, held on March 23, drew more than 1,400 parents to five DARCARS dealerships Fairfax Chrysler-Plymouth, Ford/Lanham Kia, Toyota of Silver Spring, Wilson Powell Lincoln-Mercury, and 355 Toyota of Frederick.

Sponsored by DNA LifePrint, which makes the kits used in collecting the samples, similar programs have been held at more than 400 car dealerships across the country over the past three years. The company says a childês DNA sample is a better form of child identification than fingerprints, and is useful in the case of abduction or runaway, perhaps increasing chances of a child’s safe return.

DARCARS employees volunteered to spend their Sunday taking DNA samples from the children. The procedure was simple and absolutely painless: just run a cotton swab on the inside of the cheek, drop the swab into a test tube filled with clear liquid that stops the growth of bacteria (which can kill DNA), and drop it into a red envelope that the parents keep. The kids got juice and cookies.

To alleviate parent’s privacy concerns, the staff at DARCARS and the flyers from DNA LifePrint tell parents that the sample isn’t coded and that personal information about the childês DNA isn’t stored in any databases.

The program was promoted through 150,000 flyers distributed in elementary schools in the dealershipsê communities. It also received advance notice in area newspapers, and through 1,500 PSAs run on Comcast.

There also was a lot of interest drummed up through word-of-mouth, which resulted in a lot of calls and emails, said Diane Rexroad, executive assistant to Tammy Darvish of DARCARS Toyota of Silver Spring, which handled nearly half of all the children.

Why undertake such an extensive program?

The philosophy at DARCARS and we include this in our hire orientation is the community has been really, really good to us and you have to give back some time, said Rexroad. Itês the culture here. There are things that are just the right thing to do.

Weêre planning to do it again in September, she added.