We’re having tremendous response from school districts, local police and fire departments, as well as additional sponsors / businesses in each community we serve.
Beth Durrett, Chief Financial Officer, Bestway

Bestway stores are located in the Southeastern United States; Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia. See a photo gallery from the recent Bestway Convention in Memphis, Tennessee.

Bestway Rent to Own, the third largest rental purchase company in the United States, will host a "Bestway to Child Safety" event at all locations beginning Saturday, October 7th from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The company will distribute free McGruff Safe Kids Identification Kits to all customers. The kits help teach their kids how to stay out of danger and what to do in an emergency.

According to the National Crime Prevention Council, the McGruff "Safe Kids Identification Kit" was designed with five objectives in mind:

-Interactivity between parents and children while working together on non-threatening educational information about the important topic of child safety.

-Create a piece that is interesting and intriguing enough so that the child would "play" with the kit during his/her playtime and further reinforce the educational message their parents had begun.

-Provide a section for singularly identifying information on each child, including fingerprints.

-Provide a positive interactive opportunity between law enforcement officers and the families in the communities they serve.

-Encourage parents parents to read to and be positively involved with their children.

"We’re having tremendous response from school districts, local police and fire departments, as well as additional sponsors / businesses in each community we serve," said Beth Durrett, Chief Financial Officer of Bestway. (Beth Durrett was the 10 Questions subject in the September issue of RTO Magazine.)

Louis Dominguez, director of national licensing programs for the National Crime Prevention Council, calls the McGruff Safe Kids Identification Kit a "strong preventative, instructional and advance preparation tool. We are extremely excited about the kit as it contains an effective, easy-to-use program that benefits not only individuals and families, but also participating communities."

The McGruff character is extremely popular with children. Surveys have shown that some 99 percent of children six to 12 years old recognize McGruff. The National Crime Prevention Council spends $128 annually on public service advertising.

Since its inception, more than 6 million of the kits have been distributed.

Marketing agency Boerner, Inc. developed the kits. Agency president Kurt Boerner said, "The Safe Kids program and materials work to supplement the popular and effective crime prevention communications efforts of the National Crime Prevention Council. Their message is that individuals can and do make a difference in preventing criminal acts from occurring."