Electronic Billboards to Highlight Missing Children, Including Teen from Alexandria

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and Clear Channel Outdoor Americas kicked off its ‘Summer of Hope’ billboard campaign Wednesday.

The ‘Summer of Hope’ is a national digital campaign calling attention to the plight of missing children and their families by displaying images of missing children on digital billboards and bus shelters.

The campaign started Wednesday with Clear Channel Outdoor displaying images of missing children from Alexandria, Washington D.C. and Maryland on the company’s digital bus shelters in D.C. and digital billboards in Baltimore and will expand in the coming weeks into other major cities, including; Chicago, Minneapolis and Los Angeles through “back to school” time.

Some of the electronic billboards feature images of an Alexandria teen. Police say Alysha Howard ran away from shelter care in Alexandria in October 2014 and is the City’s only remaining missing child from that year.

“Runaways, though having left of their own choice, are still missing juveniles, and are a priority to the Alexandria Police Department because they are vulnerable to various criminal elements such as gangs, drugs, or prostitution,” said Crystal Nosal, spokeswoman for the Alexandria Police Department. “Our detectives keep a case open until the runaway is located.”

“With runaways, there certainly is a high level of endangerment,” The Washington Posted quoted Michelle Collins, COO of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s Center, as saying. “We look just as hard for those children as we do any others.”

The ‘Summer of Hope’ is part of the recently launched ‘Be Here for Kids’ campaign, a year-long national child safety awareness effort using media to share life-saving public safety messages including, “Never Wait 24 Hours to Report a Missing Child.”

IMAGE of Alysha Howard courtesy of National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

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