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Festival Fun Has Serious Purpose

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By GEOFF FOX, The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 21, 2007

TRILBY - Community leaders are hoping for a large turnout at the third annual Trilby Fall Festival and Safety Rally on Saturday.

While fun and games are part of the event, the main purpose is to help parents with identification and other services for children.

'The community center will be set up for swabs, pictures and fingerprints, so kids can give them to their parents,' said Herb Green, president of the Greater Trilby Community Association.

Green said children who have DNA samples taken will be eligible to win a bicycle; one boys and one girls bike will be given away.

The free festival will be from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the community center on Trilby Road, next to Trilby United Methodist Church. The event will include hot dogs and drinks, a bounce house and a bicycle rodeo.

Pasco County firefighters are expected to attend with a firetruck, and the sheriff's office will be there with its Missing and Abducted Child Mobile Command Center, which uses high-tech equipment to quickly distribute information about missing or abducted children. Statistics say an abducted child's chances of survival greatly decrease after three hours.

A ceremony acknowledging missing children will be held on the nearby Withlacoochee Trail.

Hear live country tunes during the festival, Green said, and more music at the church after 3 p.m.

'It keeps getting bigger and bigger. It's just sort of an old-timey town festival,' he said, 'with the emphasis being on the children.'

Reporter Geoff Fox can be reached at (813) 948-4217 or gfox@tampatrib.com.

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