KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Box after box of personal documents made their way to the Brookside neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri, on Saturday.
Businesses came together to help people shred documents with personal information on them that shouldn't be just thrown away.
"We feel it is important to get those documents out of your house, out of your business, and get those documents shredded in a timely manner," Tyler Goff with Commerce Bank in Brookside said.
The event was focused on keeping your personal information safe to avoid fraud.
Goff said $3.4 billion has been lost through identity theft since 2018.
He said ripping off the address or marking out a number on an important paper doesn't offer full protection from theft.
"It can have part of your address, part of your name, part of a credit card number, part of an auto loan number and we need to get those things shredded completely. Because someone can pretend to be you and find a way to impersonate you, get your information and effect your life," Goff said.
Area businesses were able to shred their documents at the event as well.
"In a year's time in my little store, we tend to buy from 300 vendors and companies. So that means a folder for every single one of them," Jan Buerge, who owns World's Window said.
She said it can be a burden to shred all of those documents.
"It's really expensive too, to shred that much paper, and we don't have our own shredder. So when this event comes around, we are glad to be a co-sponsor because I can bring as many boxes," Buerge said.
Residents were excited and grateful to have a unique and time saving event for people in Brookside.
"I have much better things to do than sit at my shredder. So I love that I can just come here, drop this off and it frees me up for my day," Cindy Chesbrough said as she dropped off papers.
