Mac's and Toronto police join forces to find missing children
The Toronto Police Services and Mac’s Convenience Stores have joined forces to help find Canada’s missing children.
Last Friday, the TPS, Mac’s and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection’s MissingKids.ca program launched a campaign to promote National Missing Children’s Day and help raise funds and awareness.
Mac’s partnered with MissingKids.ca back in 2012 to display missing kids alerts on their in-store digital media screens across Canada. This summer’s campaign includes a similar initiative – Mac’s developed a PSA that will be displayed on the in-store screens along with province-specific ‘MissingKidsALERTS.’
In addition, from now until the end of August, shoppers will be encouraged to make donations at the counters of Mac’s locations, and staff will wear buttons promoting MissingKids.ca.
“Creating awareness and engaging our community plays a key role in public safety,” said Sean Sportun, manager, security and loss prevention for Mac’s in Central in a release.
Sportun’s community-focused security programs have served the convenience store chain well in the past. A Positive Ticketing initiative –when police officers hand out Mac’s coupons for beverages to young people for good behavior–resulted in a 55% drop in theft since 2007. He’s also promoted the use of social media to assist local police locate wanted offenders, missing persons and safety awareness initiatives under the brand “Mac’s Crime Busters.”
In a similar anti-crime initiative, late last week, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police endorsed a digital tool called Milk Carton 2.0 – a program that harnesses some of the biggest social networks to help spread awareness about lost children.
Sportun feels Mac’s is in a particularly good position to support public awareness campaigns like that of MissingKids.ca.
“With approximately 1,600 stores and communities large and small across Canada, our store presence can help extend the reach of disseminating critical information to our public in a timely fashion,” said Sportun at the press conference.
See the PSA below:
http://youtu.be/1kfwDiqf-zc