The Polly Klaas Foundation is a
501(c)(3) public charity
A charitable organization or charity is an organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being (e.g. educational, religious or other activities serving the public interest or common good).
The legal definition of a ch ...
organization devoted to preventing crimes against children, assisting in the recovery of
missing children
A missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed as their location and condition are unknown.
A person may go missing through a voluntary disappearance, or else due to an accident, crime, d ...
, and lobbying for legislative assistance. The foundation was formed October 23, 1993, to search for
Polly Klaas. Its executive director is Robert De Leo.
It has expanded its mission and now searches for many missing children.
The Polly Klaas Foundation also provides kits for parents to teach abduction prevention in a way that they state is not frightening for children. It distributes over 100,000 of these kits per year.
The Polly Klaas Foundation worked with
Convio Convio was a software company based in Austin, Texas in the USA, with offices in Washington, DC and Emeryville, CA. Convio provided internet marketing and business management applications tailored specifically for non-profit organizations, and virtu ...
to send targeted letters to state and federal officials to implement
Amber Alert
An Amber Alert (alternatively styled AMBER alert) or a child abduction emergency alert ( SAME code: CAE) is a message distributed by a child abduction alert system to ask the public for help in finding abducted children. The system originated in ...
s in all 50 states.
Polly's father, Marc, is not associated with this foundation. However, her mother, Eve Nichol, serves on the board.
History
The Polly Klaas Foundation was created initially to search for Polly Klaas. After two years, the executive director, Gary Kinley, resigned with no explanation, and there was an analysis of financial problems in 1996. The Polly Klaas Foundation has since recovered and has drastically increased its operating budget.
The Polly Klaas Foundation receives the majority of its donations via donated cars, through a partnership with
Harvard Palmer Jr.'s Vehicle Donation Processing Center.
[{{cite news, last=Schembari, first=James, title=Old Cars Can Become Good Deeds, url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/28/business/midstream-old-cars-can-become-good-deeds.html, accessdate=4 November 2013, newspaper=New York Times, date=2003-12-28]
Children
The missing children featured by the Polly Klaas Foundation include:
*
Jacob Wetterling
Jacob Erwin Wetterling (February 17, 1978 – October 22, 1989) was an American boy from St. Joseph, Minnesota, who was kidnapped from his hometown and murdered on October 22, 1989, at the age of 11. His abduction remained a mystery for nearly ...
*
Kiplyn Davis
*
Jessica Cain
Jessica may refer to:
Given name
* Jessica (given name), includes a list of people and fictional characters with this name
* Jessica Folcker, a Swedish singer known by the mononym Jessica
* Jessica Jung, a Korean-American singer known by the ...
*
Erica Fraysure
*
Jennipher Gingery
*
Kasey Shepard
Other people
*
Michelle Le, nursing student. Search efforts were supported by the foundation.
See also
*
Megan Nicole Kanka Foundation
*
Laura Recovery Center The Laura Recovery Center is a non-profit organization that works to prevent kidnappings and abductions and to recover victims of such events. The center is located in Friendswood, Texas, and is named for Laura Kate Smither (April 23, 1984 – April ...
,
Samantha Runnion
*
Elizabeth Smart
Elizabeth Ann Gilmour (née Smart; born November 3, 1987) is an American child safety activist and commentator for ABC News. She gained national attention at age 14 when she was abducted from her home in Salt Lake City by Brian David Mitchell. ...
*
Dru Sjodin
*
Dr. Chris Hatcher —
criminal profiler
Offender profiling, also known as criminal profiling, is an investigative strategy used by law enforcement agencies to identify likely suspects and has been used by investigators to link cases that may have been committed by the same perpetrato ...
*
Murder of Adam Walsh
Adam John Walsh (November 14, 1974 – July 27, 1981) was an American child who was abducted from a Sears department store at the Hollywood Mall in Hollywood, Florida on July 27, 1981. His severed head was found two weeks later in a drainage can ...
References
External links
Official site
Foundations based in the United States
Children's charities based in the United States
Organizations established in 1993
Missing people organizations