Ilima De La Cruz was at Kahala Mall with her granddaughter when a man called her over to a booth with Honolulu police officers.

"He said, ‘Come over, it’s for us,’" she said.

A few minutes later, De La Cruz received a yellow kupuna ID, or senior safety card, from the police officers.

De La Cruz, 65, was familiar with the keiki ID, a card that can help identify a lost child in the case of an emergency. But she had never heard of the kupuna ID and was happy to receive one along with a blue lanyard to hang the card around her neck.

"I’m not getting any younger," she said. "What the heck."

The kupuna ID has basic emergency contact information, the person’s picture, physical description, medical information and a fingerprint image. It can help identify a person with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease or identify an emergency contact.

The Honolulu Police Department issued more than 100 of the senior citizen cards during a kupuna event at Kahala Mall on Saturday. The information used to create the IDs is not retained, police said.

Cpl. Everett Higa, of HPD’s East Honolulu community policing team, said HPD organized the fair, called Aloha No Na Kupuna, to improve its partnership with community agencies and provide seniors with information and preventative measures for their safety.

"We’re not just enforcers," he said. "We’re here to help the public be safe by giving them knowledge of the services within their own neighborhood."

Other agencies at the fair included Bank of Hawaii, which handed out information on preventing fraud, and Walk Wise Hawaii, a state program that gave away blinking lights for pedestrians to wear.

Higa said the police department has been issuing kupuna IDs for about two years through community policing teams in each district.

HPD bought the equipment to produce the cards, such as cameras and printers, with a federal grant and worked with New York Life Insurance to acquire the cards and ink.

Saturday was the first time the East Honolulu community policing team has issued the cards since 2013. Higa said the team has been busy and he didn’t know when the team would hold its next kupuna ID event.

Higa said citizens wanting a kupuna ID can call the community policing team in their police district and ask when the next event will be.

One Moiliili resident, who gave only her first name as Linda, said she usually carries emergency contact information on a piece of paper in her purse, but she liked the durability of the kupuna ID. She also appreciated that it didn’t have her address in case she lost it and that she didn’t have to be concerned about losing it because the card isn’t an official ID.

"I just found out about it," said Linda, 70, after receiving the card. "I thought it would be cool to have that handy."

She planned to slip it in a pocket when she does her daily 2-mile walk around Kapiolani Park.