Campaign for the Missing 2006 (Make a Difference)
I would be remiss if I did not mention at the close of 2005 Kelly Jolkowski at Project Jason and the great work that she does with missing persons and their families. For those of you unfamiliar with Kelly, she is the mother of the missing Jason Jolkowski. She is also the Founder and President of Project Jason, that does some amazing work in the missing persons field.
Kelly, let me just say from Scared Monkeys … thank you for your hard work and efforts. The Scared Monkeys Missing & Exploited blog along with the Scared Monkeys main page is going to try to be implementing some new things in 2006. When I chatted with Kelly earlier this month regarding her new project I told her that I would be more than happy to spread the word and see if we could not drum up some support and volunteers for this noble effort.
Kelly Jolkowski has started another project that I have personally become involved in called Campaign for the Missing 2006.
What is Campaign for the Missing 2006?
Campaign for the Missing 2006 is a grassroots effort to pass legislation in each state that will serve to improve the law enforcement community’s ability to locate and ensure a safe return of missing persons. It will address the national problems of missing persons and the identification of human remains and provide the framework for improving law enforcement’s response. It will also improve the collection of critical information about missing persons, prioritize high-risk missing persons cases, and ensure prompt dissemination of critical information to other law enforcement agencies and the public that can improve the likelihood of a safe return.
The Department of Justice, working with Federal, State, and local law enforcement; coroners and medical examiners; victim advocates; forensic scientists; key policymakers; and family members who have lived through this tragic experience, developed the model to be presented in each state’s legislature. This is an updated list of participants in the campaign: http://voice4themissing.blogspot.com/2005/12/122005-campaign-for-missing-2006.html
We have also posted in this Missing Persons Forum a discussion thread for you to take a look at. If you would like to get involved and make a difference contact Kelly directly and email me also. Make a difference in how future cases will be investigated so that attention is given to missing persons and efforts are not lost in red tape and convoluted procedures.
What do I need to do?
The campaign seeks persons in each state who are willing to write to their own district’s elected official to ask for sponsorship.
These are some of the initial steps involved:
1) If you are interested in helping make a difference in the lives of thousands of missing persons and their families, send an email to campaign2006@projectjason.org Give us your name and the state in which you live.
2) Look up the name and contact information for your state senator. This is the official who works with state law rather than federal. You may look up your representative here http://www.ncsl.org/public/leglinks.cfm
3) Send either via email or US mail the prepared letter you will find included on the blog (in the link below) to that representative. You are asking them to sponsor this bill and to present it to the senate.
4) If you get a negative response, write to other senators until sponsorship is obtained. (My hope is that there will be more than one person in each state working on this, so that no one person is working on it.)
Please note that this is NOT a letter writing campaign. It is more extensive than that. Read all the links to understand what is asked of participants.
Please read the following for additional information: http://voice4themissing.blogspot.com/2005/12/121305-campaign-for-missing-2006.html
The above link also provides detailed information about the model legislation. This link contains the updated participant list. There may be someone you know on there. http://voice4themissing.blogspot.com/2005/12/122005-campaign-for-missing-2006.html
Please consider joining us in this effort. Thank you.
I know that there are many of you out there that want to make a difference in Missing Persons cases. This is a great opportunity to make a real difference. Get involved and change the way things are done for the better. I know many of you out there want to make a difference. The following is a note from Kelly on her blog,
So, the question now remains: Are you willing to take action to help the families you read about on this blog and the countless thousands of other families who live in the “not knowing”? What if it was your son, daughter, mother, father, brother, or sister?
What if you were me and you did not know if your own son was a body lying in a morgue somewhere? What if you were me and you wondered if you would ever see your child again?
I am but one voice for the missing, crying out not just for myself and my son, but for all of those who are not among us, and are close to our hearts.
While it may seem an insurmountable task to get the model legislation passed in all 50 states, that doesn’t matter to me. If we do not try, then we will never succeed. If we do try, then we have a chance.
There is always hope.