In 1995, a group of 7 men rode their bicycles from Utica, New York to Washington, D.C. in order to raise awareness about the plight of missing children and to bring a message of safety to the people they met along the way. They arrived on the steps of the Capitol on May 25th, the first National Missing Children’s Day. Two years later, inspired by that first Ride, a group of 43 riders rode their bicycles 100 miles from Albany to Utica with the same message of safety and awareness.

 

Today there are 5 Rides for Missing Children in New York State: Central New York, Rochester, the Finger Lakes, Buffalo and Albany. Each ride is a 100 mile journey completed in one day. They are not bike races. They are events where the entire group of riders rides together as a single team.

 

Through these Rides, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) is able to bring safety education to thousands of school children across New York State as well as their families and communities. The funds which are raised help to support missing child poster distribution, educational programs, case management, and the mission of the NCMEC-NY Branch Office located in Rochester, NY.

 

If you are interested in riding, volunteering or making a donation, please read through the site for more information. Thank you for joining our mission “to make our children safer…one child at a time.”

 

 

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

 

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s (NCMEC) 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.

 

A private, nonprofit organization, established in 1984, NCMEC operates under a Congressional mandate and works in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Program.

 

The mission of NCMEC includes:

Serving as a clearinghouse of information about missing and exploited children;
Operating a CyberTipline that the public may use to report Internet-related child sexual exploitation;
Providing technical assistance to individuals and law enforcement agencies in the prevention, investigation, prosecution and treatment of cases involving missing and exploited children;
Assisting the U.S. Department of State in certain cases of international child abduction in accordance with the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction;
Offering training programs to law enforcement and social service professionals;
Distributing photographs and descriptions of missing children worldwide;
Coordinating child protection efforts with the private sector;
Networking with non profit service provides and state clearinghouses about missing person cases;
Providing information about effective state legislation to help ensure the protection of children.

For more information about NCMEC, please visit their website at www.missingkids.com.

 

To report a missing child, please call the toll free hotline at 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678).