October November 1999

Welcome

We want to wish our members and their families a HAPPY THANKSGIVING
BTW on your holiday travels please take along a WF or two to post on the way to Grandmother's house. Dean, Patty, & Jerry

From the Executive Directors Desk:

First of all I'd like to welcome all of the new members! 4thekids membership has more than doubled since the last Newsletter which makes it difficult to contact and welcome each new member. I can only express my gratitude to you for wanting to help with missing children and for choosing our organization to volunteer your time to. Thanks so much.

We have been working on some new ideas for things that need to be done in order that 4thekids can run efficiently. Most of these require volunteers. If you would like to volunteer your time , please contact Dean or myself at one of these e-mail addresses: pbeeken@comweb.net or forthekids@comweb.net. It will be time well spent.

Volunteers are needed to help out with the following:

	Tracking down some of the leads that are received about missing children. Dean and I often spend a great deal of time researching missing children reports that turn out to be hoaxes or a closed case. As a result other necessary duties are laid aside.
	To help make brochures.
	To write or to proofread.
	To be part of a team that does internet searches in areas where it is suspected that a missing child might be. I have spent a great deal of time doing searches for and sending e-mails to businesses in those areas asking them to post fliers in their places of business. If we had a team, a much larger area could be covered.
	To share skills or ideas that would help the missing children. We welcome new ideas.
	To raise funds. See OPERATIONAL NEWS for details.

Thank you for all that you do to help missing children.

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce Jerry Strahan. He has many contacts in the private investigator's circles, some of whom have joined us, and has been a great help on doing research. Jerry is also a moderator for the e-mail group and is a great help if Dean and I are out of town. 4the kids is moderated closely. The only messages sent out over the alert list are ones that have verification of missing kids and news about 4thekids. A moderator is the only person that has the authority to send out these messages.

Besides the alert list, there are two other lists. One is for parents and the other is for information sharing. You are welcome to and encouraged to join any of these lists.

Patty Beeken
Executive Director

PS Thank you for all that you do to help missing children.

Newsletter News

I would like you to welcome Joyce M. Schultz who has joined us as the editor of 4thekids. We are very pleased to have Joyce on our team. She will be taking over the duty starting with the next issue. Any story ideas or news items may be sent directly to Joyce. She may be contacted at: Joyce M. Schultz joyscrft@centurytel.net

I would also like to offer my thanks to Gail Roach who has very skillfully proofed and helped to rewrite this newsletter. (where was she when I was doing term papers in college?)

Dean Powers
Web Master

Web Page News

Due to some unexpected major expenses, we have been unable to move to our new domain. We are hoping to do that shortly. Our main page has been busy with over 1,200 hits last month. The WF has also been receiving a lot of viewers.

REMEMBERED PAGE

We are currently working on this page. We always check with the families of children who have died, if it's alright to include their children here.

HOAX PAGE

We have been receiving a lot of inquiries on an e-mail that has been making the rounds (See Kelsey Brooke Jones ). I would like to thank everyone for checking with 4thekids before forwarding the alert. If this should happen again, we would appreciate it if you would forward our reply to the person that sent you the alert.

REDESIGNED ACTIVE CASE PAGE

We have redesigned the Active Cases Page making the picture files smaller so that the loading time would be shorter.

NEW HERO 4thekids IN THE SPOTLIGHT

A new Hero 4thekids has been named. When it came time to spotlight another Hero "4thekids", the choice of English born Colin Gabriel Hatcher was an easy one. Gabriel is President and CEO of SafetyEd International. To read more about our latest Hero 4thekids click HERE

A MUST READ

4THEKIDS Email List

We have have added 2 more lists on onelist dot com. To learn more please click HERE.

Fliers

Do fliers really work? You bet your printer that they do. Here are two emails that we have received recently.

The first email is from a father of a missing case which is still VERY active. We are making progress but we really need a lot of extra effort on this case.

We have a lead that they are in Texas. Please send the flier to anyone you know in Texas. The woman that has the kids is a big time chat junkie so the more people that see the flier the sooner we can get Gator's kids back home.

https://members.tripod.com/Forthekids/blevins.html

What our members do with the Alert Notices is what makes this stuff work.

Both of the parents that wrote the e-mails are now members of 4thekids proving that this organization is a powerful and effective tool.

From: FLYGATOR@*****.net (F. JOHN BLEVINS)

11/11/99 22:33

Subject:

To: forthekids@comweb.net (Dean Powers)

Hello. My name is Gator Blevins. I received an address from a kind lady who found out that I had 4 missing children. I'm not quite sure how she found out but God Bless her for leading me to 4TheKids. I had been running into dead ends everywhere I turned and realized just how cruel people can really be. Dean Powers worked with me to get everything in order by making up a flier, getting me in touch with the right contacts and getting my local law enforcement on the ball who other wise would still be dragging their feet.

Within 48 hours not only did I have almost 1000 hits on the flier, I also received a major break in the case when one of the people saw the flier in their e-mail and notified us where the children were headed.

I feel so much better now I know that they are alive and ok and we are waiting on law enforcement to move in on her and return my children to me. I think as human beings we should all band together and stop the abuse and exploitation of children by taking a few minutes of our time to check things out and keep our eyes open for other than usual behaviors that abducted children display. How hard is it to pick up the phone and dial 911 when something looks suspicious. We won't be put in jail for being concerned! WAKE UP AND DO SOMETHING BEFORE IT HAPPENS TO YOU! You wonder if the fliers work? Take a look at my case going from nothing to HOPE in a matter of hours. I commend 4TheKids for their outstanding performance on my case and will be a lifetime member giving all the support that parents of missing children need even if it means a small sacrifice of my time because I know the rewards are great in the end

Sincerely,

F. JOHN BLEVINS (GATOR)

The next email is about how a flier helped bring a child home.

From: "********, Debbie" <*********@******.com>

Subject: STEVEN IS HOME!!

To: 'Dean Powers' <forthekids@comweb.net>

CC: Jerry Strahan <jerrystrahan@webtv.net>, pbeeken@comweb.net

A lady saw the flier and called. He was living in the woods on the edge of town. He was mugged and his bike and money were taken. Thank God and Thank all of you for your help!

Debbie

Steps To Email A WF

	Go to the WF that you wish to email to your friends, family, and contacts. Please be careful when sending out a WF. We NEVER want anyone to feel that they were spammed.
	Select File on the bar at the top of your browser, then select Send. Then fill in the email addresses.
	Most people will be able to use their address book by clicking on the "To"

THE NUMBERS

The Department of Justice estimates that "440,000 children are lost or otherwise missing each year, including children abducted by a stranger or acquaintance; children abducted by a parent or family member...; and children who are abandoned - thrown away - or told to leave home. "It also says that "450,000 children and young people run away from home every year." Even if 73 percent are returned home within 48 hours like the DOJ say that still leaves 240,000 children missing every year. The DOJ also estimates that 4,600 children are missing from stranger abduction each year.

Jimmy Scott

We are very sad to learn the news of Jimmy Scott's death. Jimmy was a long time member of 4thekids who was always there for us. I have lost count of the number of our members that came to join our group thanks to the work of Jimmy. One time I was sending out an alert notice via ICQ. I went to the page where the notice was posted. I wanted to check the number of flier visitors. I became concerned when I noticed the page had had less than half of the normal visitors. Later that day, I was looking for an old ICQ message when I noticed that the Alert Notice hadn't been sent to Jimmy. The ICQ message was inadvertently filed in the Send Later folder. I immediately sent it to him. He must have worked hard to get that flier out, because the next day the visitor numbers had increased to what they normally were. From that point on, every alert notice sent out went to Jimmy first.

I knew that he could be counted on to do everything in his power to help the missing kids. We will miss Jimmy and the work that he did for the organization. Please take a moment to think of Jimmy. (dwp)

Operation News

As some of you know, 4thekids have been in operation for just a little over 7 months. All of the funding so far has been provided by Patty and myself. Like everyone else, we have limited resources and the lack of adequate funding has really been detrimental to our efforts. There just isn't enough to do all that needs to be done to help these missing children.

Phone charges alone for verification of cases are astronomical. We had hoped to have the 501 filed by now which would greatly aid in raising the necessary funds. Unfortunately, it will cost $1,100 for a lawyer to file it and then $500 for the IRS to file it. We had toyed with the idea of filing it ourselves, but we decided that it would be best to have it professionally done so that it would be done right and not delayed. If anyone is a lawyer or accountant and would like to volunteer their services for this project , we would greatly appreciate hearing from you.

We are anxious to gain the 501 status because when we do, we have the services of an excellent grant writer. She has never been turned down for any grant that she has applied for.

Patty and I have devised a budget and goals for the next 6 months so that we'd know exactly where we stand. The amount needed to be raised to cover the operational and start-up expenses is out of reach of our personal budgets. We are in desperate need of a Fund Raising Committee and of dedicated volunteers. We've come up with a few ideas to raise funds and there are probably a lot of others that we haven't thought of. We need people to execute them and to think of different ways to raise funds. Here are some of the things that Patty and I have thought of for the upcoming months. Bear in mind that since our membership is world wide, we are unable to raise funds by ordinary means.

	Sponsors for our web fliers. Sponsors will have a SMALL banner at the bottom of a fliers stating that they have helped fund the organization.
	A web auction WITH ARTICLES UP FOR AUCTION BEING DONATED BY......
	A cyber chat event involving a cyber banquet with a chat speaker or maybe entertainment.

Our primary concern is helping the missing kids but we will be unable to if we cannot cover our costs. We need your help. We aren't asking the membership for donations. We feel that you do enough with viewing, printing and posting the notices. That itself is a lot of work which we greatly appreciate.

We also will NEVER ask or take money from any family that we are helping. Our first Hero 4thekids, Ed Williams, who runs the Iowa Missing and Exploited Children was once helping to find a friend's missing foster child. When the friend asked if they charged for their services, he said "No". When asked if he took donations, he smiled and replied "Never when we're helping someone".

I'll always remember what he said. Our main mission is helping to find children, not raising money.

Anyone wishing to serve on the Fund Raising Committee or anyone who has an idea please contact us. Help us to help the kids. The total needed to be raised is $7537. This amount is basically mostly start up costs. Below, you will see a breakdown of the amount needed.

	START-UP
Description	Note	Start-Up
Domain Name		$ 70.00

Web Site
	Annual Service Fee	$ 24.95
	Set Up Fee	$ 25.00
	Email Address 6. Per set up	$ 12.00
	Annual Service Fee	$ 11.90

Fed 501
	Filing Fees	$ 500.00
	Legal	$1,300.00

Phone
	Phones (Equipment)	$ 100.00
	Set Up Fee	$ 116.00
	Wiring est 1 hr.	$ 60.00
	Phone cards
	Pager year

Insurance

Equipment
	Computer (additional)	$1,000.00
	Computer (upgrade)	$ 300.00
	Software	$1,100.00
	Scanner Flatbed	$ 150.00
	Camera	$ 600.00
	Stand Lights	$ 100.00
	Background	$ 50.00
TOTAL		$5,519.85

	OPERATIONS
Description	Note	Operational 6 Mo.
Domain Name

Web Site
	Internet Service (6 mo.)	$ 120.00
Phone
	Phones (Equipment)
	Per line basic service $39.72mo 2 phone lines	$ 480.00
	Phone cards	$ 400.00
	Pager year	$ 67.00

Insurance

Equipment
Misc.
	Travel	$ 400.00
	Computer Disks (For ID project)	$ 200.00
	Misc.	$ 350.00
TOTAL		$ 2,017.00