by Fran Doll

Fran Doll

As a grandmother of 10, I am distraught every time I hear of a child’s abduction or when I see an Amber Alert scroll across my TV screen. But I never knew what I could do to help.

I searched for something meaningful to do upon my retirement, and I had a vision of a foundation committed to helping find abducted children.

That’s when I formed Grandparents Against Sex Predators. Our motto is, “Finding Kids Fast.”

GASP assists law enforcement by reporting to the Summit County sheriff’s command center, taking photographs of missing child door to door, walking the shopping malls, restaurants and other locations to search, checking hotels and motels and posting notices along the highway searching for a suspect’s vehicle.

GASP also fingerprints children at community events.

That’s how we helped a local mother and her children.The mother brought her children to fingerprinted when we were at a mall. She put a photograph of each of her children on their identification cards and held onto the cards.

A few weeks later, the children were kidnapped by their father and transported across state lines.

The mother was able to give the police copies of the identification cards with the fingerprints and photos to use in the investigation.

When the FBI found the children, agents were able to use the information they had gotten from GASP to identify the children.

I am so grateful that we were able to help reunite a mother and her children.

Because of donations made to the United Way of Summit County, GASP was able to receive a development-fund grant to help the community assist law enforcement in searching for and finding missing children, as well as to educate the community about how to protect children.

We thank all who helped to make this possible.