Whoop Up Bulletin

I thought you would like to mention to your club that I was in Whistler attending the Memorial Service for Rotarians who passed away during this past year, and one of them joined the Lethbridge Club in 1934. His name was Reg Rose.

He later joined the Rotary Club of Edmonton and then the Rotary Club of Vancouver in 1946.

He died at the age of 101 and was active in Rotary with his best friend Bert Perry, a member of the Rotary Club of Vancouver who lived to be 102. They passed away within months of each other.

Our own Ellie introduced Eric Sommerfeldt, CEO for Child Find Alberta. He brings experience from Alberta Social Services, Salvation Army, Canadian Mental Health to Child Find. Canada's first Child Find office is in Calgary and has been instrumental in getting 60 other offices open in the country. He grew up in the Cardston- Raymond area.

Eric tells of the beginning of Child Find 24 years ago in New York where a 6-year-old boy headed off to school three blocks away and never arrived. The resulting fuss by people who'd had more than enough child abductions convinced President Ronnie Regan to proclaim Missing Children Day in 1980. Child Find America grew out of the efforts of Gloria Yurkovitch whose husband abducted their son, so she took her grievance to civil courts, state by state.

Today, Child Find deals with parental abductions, stranger abductions and runaways. Child Find Alberta got its start in response to the Tania Murrell abduction on January 20, 1983, in Edmonton, and the Michael Donahue case. Five ladies in Calgary learned from Child Find America, who formed Friends of Child Find, which began the third association in North America, and the first in Canada. There are now 30 to 40 active branches in Alberta, and offices in all provinces except Yukon and NWT which operate out of other branches. There are 200 to 250 volunteers working out of Calgary, Edmonton and Lethbridge.

Ellie tells of her beginning of Child Find while she worked at the Lethbridge Herald. Her page of 26 missing kids was sponsored totally by Lethbridge businesses, and subsequently 25 of the 26 kids were located. Ellie knows first-hand of the Jessica Koopman abduction, which spurred her to actively promote Child Find in Lethbridge. Jessica's mother agreed to ask for donations to Child Find in lieu of flowers.

Ellie has opened a Child Find office in the Sandman Inn (403) 328-KIDS (5437), which will be staffed Monday to Friday 9:00 to 4:30, for the summer by student and past Rotary Club of Grand Prairie exchange student Sirena. Ellie hopes this beginning will pave the way for volunteers to keep the office open after the student grant money runs out and Sirena goes back to University.

Eric says the search and locate program has been enhanced with educational programs to prevent abductions. Over the last five years, the search and locate program morphed out of a paper-based system into an Internet-related system of e-mailing notifications to businesses, individuals and the media. This has resulted in successes averaging six weeks, to be reduced to five days. The agency also uses electronic tracking to pursue abductors through cooperation of credit card companies.

Information and support is given to parents who anticipate problems arising out of a bad divorce, or a fearless kid that is headed for trouble. There are a number of programs on the above link to Child Find which give valuable information on prostitute prevention and parental advice. Eric says kids from the Bible-belt are actively recruited by "punkers" who meet them at the bus station. They are not street savvy, so we have to educate them before they ever get to the big city. "Yes, we talk about things that you don't even want to think about, but kids are having childhoods that are not like the ones we had, and we have to be blunt."

Child Find is not intended to replace any other program, but rather to work with police and other agencies. Child Find is a privately funded organisation, so it can pay more attention to one case than another, and can ask for favours that a government-funded agency cannot. Anonymous tips are accepted, an action that police cannot act upon. The organisation also provides contacts for parental support from a database of parents who are recovering from loss or recovered children.

AMECO (Association of Missing and Exploited Children's Organizations, Inc.) provides training by the FBI and Secret Service, with funding coming from the U.S. Government, but not the Canadian Government. The Amber Alert program which began in the U.S. was first implemented in Canada, here in Alberta. This is a Read-O-Graph illuminated sign over highways and also introduced as an in-car read-out by Chrysler. The first 3-4 hours that a child goes missing can be the most critical, as many are killed by their abductors in this time.

In the U.S., 1.3 to 1.6 million are reported each year, of those 3-4000 are abductions by strangers. In Canada, this stranger abduction is 48-50 cases annually.

Ellie and other volunteers across the province have fingerprinted 750,000 kids and conducted 1000 school education programs. They have a satellite office open in Taber and requests for assistance from Pincher Creek and Crowsnest Pass. When a parent fears the estranged partner may abduct a child, Ellie completes a 33 page report detailing past history, habits and details that will help to locate the child if the abduction ever happens.

"Yes, it would be fine if you passed us your $5.00 cash donation, but even better would be for you to spend $5.00 worth of time thinking of how your company can get involved. Think of how your next advertising could include Child Find awareness, how your next give-away promotion could include a Child Find fact or phone number, or a safety tip. Use your advertising dollar for double-duty. Think outside the box on how your service can integrate Child Find."

Volunteers at Child Find are always needed to help with fingerprinting and educational programs. Call Sirena at the (403) 328 KIDS (5437), or send her e-mail.

Kendall and Darrell gave an update on the project, then asked for and received a majority vote to increase the at-risk expense dollars to $29,000. An additional $6500 for a bonded, ticket-management system was the big money item increase. We expect to gross $90 to $100 thousand. Motion to approve by Doug McArthur, seconded by Dick Turner. Carried And the best part of all: WE Do Not Have To Sell Tickets!!!

Duncan Lloyd and Bruce VR made a joint announcement that Coaldale is negotiating with Lethbridge to form the first Regional Police force in Alberta. This has been in the works for the last two years, and you heard it first here in the Whoop~Up Bulletin.

Frank bore the brunt of fines for referring to the vertically disadvantaged SAA, and snapping his gum in the mike, and worst of all, calling for Rotarians to bring their wives to the June 30 spousal meeting. Happy bucks from Dick for his weekend birthday bash for Jasper deHeer. Richard for the 44th annual Y's-mans auction coming to cable 12, Bill Cade for enjoying Ron Sakamoto's yodel at convocation. Dennis Chinner who is looking forward to pulling an all-nighter with his wife (reference to the Cancer Relay). Duncan Lloyd for not being the Duncan of club historian renown, and for his 35th anniversary and his son is engaged. John H is happy that Clarica and Sun Life are now legally married.

Kendall was fined for his mug shot, pictured in the paper as he gave blood. Ed was fined for promoting beef and questioned as to how we would know if he had mad cow disease. Ed said the advantage of eating beef was that he at least could purchase his suits in the Men's department. Donna Coslovi paid for not having John Harmers red tag removed.