I wasn't sure where to put this...so here goes.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock)
December 23, 2007 Sunday
SPOTLIGHT Let's Bring Them Home Advocates for missing persons
BY MICHELLE PARKS ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
ROGERS - The idea behind Let's Bring Them Home is simple. Someone is missing, and the agency's staff wants to help return him home.
But the agency doesn't focus on just children or adults or the mentally disabled who are missing. It focuses on them all.
The office is in a space the size of a walk-in closet adjacent to LaDonna Meredith's husband's photography business in downtown Rogers. The three staff members - Meredith, Amy Smith and Misty Meredith, La-Donna's sister-in-law - aren't here very much, though. They're often visiting civic and community groups and schools, talking about their mission.
Meredith and Smith, mothers with two children each, have been involved in their community and in nonprofits for years. Smith taught preschool. Meredith spent two years at the Rogers office of the Morgan Nick Foundation and then worked with the Kendrick Fincher Memorial Foundation.
"Both of us are very passionate about children and safer communities," Meredith says.
They decided to put their backgrounds and knowledge to use on a larger scale.
After surveying families nationwide with missing loved ones, they found there are many grass-roots organizations. Most of those are named after someone, and the life span of such named organizations is about 10 years, Meredith says.
They wanted something longerlasting and broader in scope.
They carefully looked at other nationwide groups focused on missing people: the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the National Center for Missing Adults.
"We didn't want to reinvent something that was already in existence," Meredith says.
So a group of people sat around Meredith's dining table and decided to focus on all missing persons - from children to the elderly.
Group organizers did things backward, Meredith says, by gaining national exposure fairly quickly. They looked at the Kent Jacobs case, in which the 42-year-old disabled man disappeared in March 2002 in Fayetteville, N.C. They believe he was beaten and murdered for the $100 he carried, but he has never been found.
"There are literally no clues to where he is," Meredith says. "That case is one that's really touched us to the core." His case had gotten little media coverage. They offered the largest missing persons reward in that state's history - $150,000. Though the reward has expired, they recently put up a billboard message asking people to call a hot line with information.
"We do not pick our cases; they pick us," Meredith says.
They only get involved if the family or law enforcement officials requests their help. A police report must have been filed for them to take on a case.
Some 2,300 people are reported missing every day, Meredith says. But only a small fraction - maybe about 100 - of those cases are broadcast nationwide each year.
Let's Bring Them Home helps to bring public attention to such cases. The nonprofit has taken on 15 cases in its first two years. Four of those cases were solved, "which is pretty good odds," Meredith says.
It wasn't all the effort of Let's Bring Them Home that brought results, though. Law enforcement did a lot, but the organization has helped increase public awareness.
Bringing that attention "to a case that otherwise would not be brought to light is very important," Meredith says.
Two of those recoveries were in Arkansas.
One was Nelson Berger, who disappeared from Bella Vista. They planned a search, but his body was found the day before. It's suspected he had a heart attack and crashed his converted motorcycle.
Another was a 16-year-old Siloam Springs girl who reportedly ran away from home in July. She was returned home about eight weeks after she disappeared.
The organization works as a liaison between families and law enforcement agencies and also provides public relations services. When taking on a case, staff members meet the family and learn about the details one on one.
SOMETHING THAT'S LASTING The organization also focuses on prevention. Safety Matters is an education program for mentally disabled adults and children. Let's Bring Them Home partnered with the Arkansas Support Network. Out of that came Jacob's Project, an effort to establish an alert system for the mentally disabled similar to the Amber Alert, which is for child-abduction cases.
Another program, Perception Project/Kids Off the Grid, focuses on children who aren't reported missing due to drug addiction, homelessness, or the children being runaways or the victims of unreported crimes.
April's Hope creates beautification projects, like the Arbor of Hope at the Botanical Garden of the Ozarks, and also raises money for search and rescue equipment.
"It's so easy for people to forget, so we want to be able to be a part of something that's lasting," Meredith says.
The McGruff Safe Kids Total Identification program is a state-of-the-art photo identification system and prevention program. The agency bought the franchise, but isn't using it to make money. They accept donations on their Web site.
They've educated about 8,000 children and provided identification packets to 800 children. The goal is to provide identification for 60,000 children in seven counties. Each packet costs $10 to produce.
"We believe it's so important that we want to give that at no cost to them," Smith says.
It gives families a digital copy of their children's fingerprints and photograph, along with vital statistics. That can give police what they need to immediately start a search when a child disappears.
"You have a small window" of time, Smith says.
"Our goal is to empower these kids and their families to be safe and to be smart," Meredith says.
Smith says they feel that the more prevention they do, "the less recovery we'll have to do." The agency is also developing a safety program for the elderly.
More information on Let's Bring Them Home is available by calling LaDonna Meredith at (479) 966-0471 or by visiting the Web site:
www.letsbringthemhome.org http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=574&topicId=100020825&docId=l:720722882&start=16
