BRADENTON, Fla. — One shred at a time…

In an attempt to help residents avoid identity theft, Manatee County Clerk is helping residents destroy important paperwork. The clerk held a shred event this past weekend and is offering tips to help residents keep their documents safe.

For Bob Inderbitzen he will do anything to keep his family safe.

“This is a godsend for me because it would probably take me another four to five days to shred the rest of that stuff,” he said.

On Saturday, Inderbitzen waiting in line to hand over important documents that he collected from his wife’s uncle.

“The first time we visited him we had to close on his old condo we sold his car,” he said.

His wife's uncle is a World War II veteran. He is now 95 years old and placed in assisted living. When Bob and his family helped him move out of his condo, there was years of documents in the condo.

“Took all of his old paperwork. and i had already shredded a couple boxes but we still had one box left,” he said.

Inderbitzen handed over that box of papers to a company called ShredQuick.

The company operates trucks that are a one-stop shop to dump, shred, and recycle documents.

"All of this stuff has his name and address and banks accounts and all of those kinds of things so to have a trusted service that you know you can use for this is really a help,” Inderbitzen said.

According to the Federal Trade Commission identity theft is on the rise and in 2021 there was 1.4 million identity theft reports and fraud losses have increased by more than 70 percent over the year 2020.

Angel Colonneso the Manatee County Clerk of the Circuit Court called it an important day.

“As you know identity theft is on the rise," Colonneso said. "And clerks and comptrollers statewide are charged with a variety of laws and rules to redact certain information so we are heightened and aware of that need to redact personal identification."

And this year the mission was to help residents get rid of documents before the holidays.

“It’s provided for them they can watch it being shredded if they want and it discards it and people feel relief once it’s done,” she said.

For Bob and so many others, it gives them a piece of mind knowing where your handing your important documents to and watching it get shredded.

People helping people during a time of uncertainty giving a helping hand to those protecting themselves and their families.

The next shred day event will be on Saturday, April 22, 2023 at the Manatee County Fairgrounds from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.