And "The Ride" Continues...

I am so excited ~ The Ride for Missing Children for both Albany and Syracuse, New York occurs tomorrow. At 6:45 a.m. riders will arrive to unload their bicycles, equipment, and hearts to ride on behalf of our missing children. The Albany riders will ride to raise “posters” and the Syracuse riders will ride to support “prevention education”.

The Ride for Missing Children is an outreach of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). There are rides across New York State each year with this being the first in Syracuse. My daughter, cousins, and I have traveled to Albany in years past but this September – I will join the bicyclist less than hour from my home to kick off their ride. In addition to the opportunity to share Heidi’s case and my story with the riders, a couple of my girlfriends will be making the trek with me. It will be a morning of sisterhood, bonding, and encouragement.

NCMEC is more than an agency for families when their child goes missing. NCMEC devotes countless hours and funds to educate parents, children, educators, and communities of ways to keep our children safe. They believe in prevention education as the stepping stone to end the need for poster distribution. I pray and look forward to the day when there isn’t a need for new posters to be made but instead all children will understand and know how to keep themselves safe from harm.

This evening and tomorrow – will you keep the hundreds of bicyclist in your prayers? They use their personal and vacation times to ride on behalf of current missing children as a message of hope while also riding to educate and increase awareness in a proactive way – to keep our children safer, one child at a time. Thank you riders – may the wind be on your backs!

For more information about the Syracuse Ride:
http://www.rideformissingchildren.org/syracuse/
"The Ride is an event that is held to support the Upstate NY office of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (aka NCMEC, see attached mission document). In summary, the mission of NCMEC is threefold: 1) prevent the sexual exploitation of children 2) assist in the recovery of missing children 3) remind the public of the plight of missing children everywhere. All funds raised by the Ride will stay in the Central New York area.