By Adam Smith

The North Jefferson News



A Gardendale teen was found safe this week, thanks in part to a non-profit company aimed at finding missing children and adults.

Lt. Chuck Denham of the Gardendale Police Department said a 13-year-old white female reportedly ran away from a residence on Cathy Lane on Monday. That evening, more than 500 residents received phone calls from the Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.-based group, A Child is Missing.

Residents with published phone numbers received the calls and were informed that there was a child missing in the area and were given a physical and clothing description of the teen.

One resident who received a call was Sharon Heinl, who resides in the North Village subdivision of Gardendale. She got the call shortly before 11:30 p.m.

“It just said, ‘This is the Gardendale Police Department and there is a missing child in your area,’” she said. “They said to contact the police department if I saw her.”

The next morning, Heinl and her husband were driving to vote at the Gardendale Civic Center when she saw a young girl walking near Main Street that matched the teen’s description.

“I told my husband, ‘That’s the little girl,’ and I called 911,” she said. A patrol car later picked up the teen near the intersection of U.S. 31 and Moncrief Road.

Denham praised Heinl’s decision to call the police department to ensure the teen returned home safely. He also praised the A Child is Missing program.

“It’s a great program, though some people may be wondering why they got a phone call so late at night,” he said. “People get the call and they are able to participate in the program by going to their front porch or back porch just to see if a missing person is there.”

The program is provided without cost to the police department, just as it is to 3,500 other departments across the country. The program is available to all 16,000 police departments in the country.

The program was founded in 1997 and receives financial support from special events, sponsorship, state and federal funding and private and corporate donations, according to the group’s Web site. The mission of A Child is Missing is to assist law enforcement in the search and safe recovery of children, the elderly, disabled persons and college students via a rapid-response neighborhood alert program using telephones.

Founder and Executive Director Sherry Friedlander said she founded the organization because there were no other groups that bridged the gap between the AMBER Alert and SILVER Alert systems that are used to find children and the elderly. So far, the program has played a role in finding more than 400 missing persons.

“It makes me feel absolutely great that we are here and available to law enforcement,” Friedlander said. “We all have to help one another and everyone in this organization is very proud of the fact that we’re able to save someone’s life.”

Heinl said she could appreciate the effectiveness of the program, even though her children are now in their 20s. However, she said it would be good if the alert could reach more residents.

“I think it would be a good idea to alert the whole area,” she said. “The place where she [the teen] was found, those people didn’t get the phone call.”

The program is in the process of finding new ways to send alerts, Friedlander said. She said if residents would visit the Web site and register cell phone or other unlisted numbers, the program could reach a wider range of people when someone goes missing. She said the organization is also looking into the possibility of sending text messages to alert citizens.

For more information on A Child is Missing, visit www.achildismissing.org.