SPOTLIGHT

The T. Boone Pickens Foundation focuses grants to organizations that operate in its core giving categories (see “About TBPF”). The current partner spotlight is the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children ® (NCMEC), whose mission is to help prevent child abduction and sexual exploitation; help find missing children; and assist victims of child abduction and sexual exploitation, their families, and the professionals who serve them.

NCMEC, established in 1984 as a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, provides services nationwide for families and professionals in the prevention of abducted, endangered, and sexually exploited children.

The T. Boone Pickens Foundation awarded NCMEC $100,000 to help open a new regional office in Austin, Texas. “An Austin office seemed a prudent step in helping at-risk youth, an important part of the Foundation’s mission,” Mr. Pickens says. “ We understand the new office will provide training for law enforcement, educate the community about child safety, and work to bring home missing children.”

First Lady Laura Bush participated in the April Austin announcement.

“Every year, 800,000 children are reported missing in our country. Sixty thousand of these cases are right here in Texas," Mrs. Bush said. "Yet because of the hard work of law enforcement, concerned Americans, and the National Center, most of these cases are resolved. I'm very proud that our capital city will soon be home to a new center for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, which will help protect our children."

The Austin office will work with and assist existing government and non-government organizations in prevention and education programs, provide training for law enforcement and prosecutors, with particular emphasis on Internet-related crimes against children, and will establish a staff, including case managers, who will work with and assist state and local law enforcement in difficult cases.

“We have long hoped to have an office in the Southwest,” said Ernie Allen, president and CEO of NCMEC. “We were thrilled when such as generous Texas philanthropists provided enough money to open and sustain an office in Austin.”

NCMEC, headquartered in Alexandria, Va., has offices in Tustin, Calif.; Naples, Florida; Lake Park, Florida.; Kansas City, Kansas.; Rochester, New York; Utica, New York; and Columbia, South Carolina.

For more information about the NCMEC, call its toll-free, 24-hour hotline at 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678) or visit its website at www.missingkids.com.