Making A Difference is a republish and about missing kids.

The following story is about a friend, someone who I came to know over the last several years while searching for a missing friend. It is about missing people and in this case, Patty Beeken's story about missing kids and how she became an activist.  Wayne..

Making A Difference

By: Kristy Brannen

OMAHA FAMILY

Patty Beeken

A little more than 10 years ago, Patty Beeken, LPN, president and co-founder of 4thekids Missing Kid Services, experienced something that changed her life. Her then 17-year-old daughter went missing.

I was frantic, Beeken said. “You are terrified when you realize that your child is not where they are supposed to be and you don’t know when or if you will ever see them again,” she said. Since her daughter, Jessica, had been staying with her father in Lyman, Nebr., Beeken went to the local authorities there for help.

She explained that the law enforcement officers in Lyman were very helpful until they learned that Jessica was likely in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Then Beeken encountered a frustrating obstacle. The Cheyenne authorities were not nearly as helpful as Beeken expected. “They kept telling me that because Jessica was 17 they were basically not very interested in going out of their way to find her,” she said. “I heard. ‘She’s going to be 18’, more times than I care to say.”

At a standstill, Beeken wasn’t sure of her next step. By doing a little digging herself, Beeken was able to identify the general location of where Jessica was staying. After three months of turmoil, Jessica decided to return home. “I was elated that she was safe, but also very angry that she would do that to us,” Beeken said. “Kids do stuff and don’t think about the impact or the pain and worry they cause.”

Using her experience to help others While searching for her daughter, Beeken turned to her late friend, Dean Powers for comfort and help. Powers developed a web site with Jessica’s picture and information that could be printed out in a flier format. Beeken sent the link to anyone she could, who in turn could forward the information to others or send her pertinent information.

“By the time the web site had been up for three weeks, we had over 10,000 hits,” she said. “I had tons of emails from people. Some of them from people who just wanted to tell me what had happened when their child ran way or just to say they were sorry she was missing.” 

Through the web site and e-mails, she also began to realize how caring people are to others in need. “One woman from Indiana wrote to me to tell me she had been driving to Denver and that every rest area, truck stop, or gas station that she had stopped at along the way now had Jessica’s flier hanging in there,” Beeken said.

After seeing how powerful this web site had been, Beeken and Powers decided to expand their efforts. Beeken credits Powers, who died in 2002, with making 4thekids a reality. “He was the driving force to help us get started,” she said. “After Jessica was found, we talked a lot about what could happen if we organized the power and interest that was taken in her case.”

In the last decade, the organization has changed dramatically. It started as a small e-mail list that was used to simply pass along missing child information and eventually became a national organization.

“We went from being a small information e-mail list to a full-blown organization with a board of directors, web site, and a team of investigators who work for free,” Beeken said. “We have worked close to 200 missing child cases.”

Providing parents with alternatives Beeken remembers the helpless feeling she had when her own daughter was missing. It is that feeling that she hopes to help families in similar situations overcome by providing local resources. They are not alone, Beeken said. “When my child was missing in 1998 there were very few resources for me to turn to,” she said. “I did contact the National Center For Missing and Exploited Children, but having someone right here to talk to and tell me what to do would have been a God-send.”

When parents contact 4thekids, they give the organization permission to give and receive information to local officials. The director of investigations reviews each case and determines if the organization can help. If 4thekids can help, it assigns an investigator to work closely with the parents and appropriate law enforcement agency to follow up on leads and get media coverage. When the child is located, the investigator notifies the law enforcement agency, which in turn, picks the child up and contacts the parents.

“My wish is that nobody feels as alone as I did when my child was missing,” Beeken said. She also hopes that more families utilize 4thekids’ free services. “I know there are many missing children from this area. I need to find a way to make sure there are more families out there that know we are here and will help.”

A different purpose 4thekids has provided Beeken with a sense of purpose that she hadn’t experienced before. “I am happy when we are able to help parents,” she said. “I honestly wish we could make more of an impact.”

Leading the organization has provided her with an opportunity to work on projects she would not have otherwise known about and make friends with people she would have otherwise never met. Through the years, I’ve never stopped learning, she said.

Beeken is a mother of four and grandmother of five. She has been involved with beta testing the Missing Person database at the new NaMus site for the Department of Justice and also is a volunteer and area director for Nebraska and Colorado for the Doenetwork, an international organization for unidentified and missing people.

APRIL 2009 • OMAHA FAMILY MAGAZINE

WWW.OMAHAFAMILY.COM

4thekids – 4thekids Missing Kid Alert SystemBottom of Form

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/4thekids/

NamUs National Missing and Unidentified Persons System

http://www.namus.gov/

The Doe Network “International Center for Unidentified & Missing Person”

http://www.doenetwork.org/