The Good Life For Less: Child Safety

With all the active stuff families do in the summer is a reminder that it's time to think about safety too.

Going on right now (07/28) at the Como Zoo and Conservatory in St. Paul, Safe Kids Minnesota and AAA will handing out 300 backless booster seats and a hundred bicycle helmets. Here are directions to the event which goes until 4 p.m. Wednesday. The freebies will be given out while supplies last.

This isn't the only opportunity to get bike helmets for free. Blaine and Waite Park are doing similar things for their city residents.

My suggestion is to call up your city hall and ask if they have a program like that in your neighborhood.

I also found this great article about all the ways you can get a free car seat or booster seat.

Another important issue is firearm safety. There are plenty of places in to get a Project ChildSafe safety kit in Minnesota which includes a firearms storage and cable-style gun lock. Click here for details and locations.

And you can get a free abduction prevention child safety kit from The Polly Klaas Foundation. It includes important numbers and techniques for "teaching, not scaring" kids about it. It also has fingerprint/DNA ID documents to record your child's personal information. Click here for more information.

If you know of any other free or inexpensive ways to keep kids safe, share them with other 'Good Lifers' in the comment section.

-Alison Lorge is a web producer and consumer blogger at WCCO.