Child Alert Program

[teramiabullfrog]

the following is a letter to the editor being e-mailed to newspapers throughout the United States:

Dear editor,

With the focus on missing children it seems appropriate to point out there is an annual federal funded, national, program currently in effect, called the Child Alert Program, that was created and developed to maximize the potential for finding a missing person quickly after their reported disappearance. According to the Program's instructions,

"...within 24 hours of receipt of a facsimile Missing Children poster, district coordinators should distribute copies to all Postal Service facilities in their district. Missing Children posters are to be displayed for 30 days in Post office lobbies, workroom floor areas, and other postal service facilities...".

These instructions are printed on the back of every monthly printed "Postal Bulletin (featuring missing child notices of up to 8 missing children on each page, up to 10 pages printed by the General Services Administration (GSA), from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) database of missing children, each month. These missing children notices are then sent to the Postal Service for display).

This National Program (Child Alert Program) has been in effect since 1985. The question is, when Shawn Hornbeck was first reported missing, in 2002, was his photo id missing child flyer (notice) printed, sent, and displayed in all post offices (as instructed in the Child Alert Program)?

A national certified 501(c)(3) charity named Finding Our Children Under Stress (F.O.C.U.S.), which is made up of family members from several families with a missing child, conducted a study of 2,000 post offices, located in nine states, and only found five (5) post offices with any "Postal Bulletin" missing child notices displayed. If a missing child notice is displayed in every post office lobby, workroom floor area and other postal facilities, within 24 hours of a reported missing child, it seems likely someone would recognize the missing child sooner than four years (especially the letter carrier for the house the missing child is being held captive).

Please help by forwarding this letter to the editor to your local newspapers.