The regional group has organized searches in the last month for Tonia Stiles in Grass Lake and Heather Cousino in Albion. Volunteers spent time in Morenci looking for the three missing Skelton brothers.
For the last decade, Missing You’s goal has been to help families of missing people to find some kind of closure.
“The not knowing is the hardest part,” said Jamie Jones, lead investigator for the foundation. “Families can deal with death. It’s hard, but you can deal with it. But not knowing — there’s nothing there.”
Missing You (www.missingyouorg.com) has a core of eight volunteers and can draw in hundreds of people to help search. They post fliers, interview family and friends, work with agencies and provide spiritual and emotional support for the families.
“We’re not out there to solve crimes. We’re out to find people,” said Sue Bess, the group’s president.
The group does not accept monetary donations. Instead, it asks for food, water, coffee and supplies for searchers.
“We run mostly on gas and time,” Bess said.
Missing You works hand in hand with law enforcement, Jones said. If there is anything police need help with, members will do it. If police want the group to stop, it will oblige.
Jones started volunteering with Missing You in 2004 during the search for Mary Lands, who went missing in Marshall and has not been found. Jones now spends most of his time organizing the group’s day-to-day operations
The nonprofit was started in 2000 by Shannon Dingee-Kramer as a way to cope with her mother’s death in 1997. While her death was ruled a suicide, Dingee-Kramer said she believes foul play was involved. She said she felt helpless during the investigation.
“What I wanted to do is give the power back to the families,” she said.
In the past 10 years, Missing You has handled around 150 cases, around 25 of those are missing people.
The rest are runaways, cases police often do not have much ability to investigate. Jones said they have helped families find relatives across the country and world. Runaways don’t always come home, but Jones said it is worth the work to let families know their loved one is safe.
While many of these cases have a positive ending, many are tragic. In 2005, Missing You helped find a 77-year-old Grand Rapids man with Alzheimer’s disease who went missing after getting on the wrong bus. Bess said that after two weeks of looking, a search party that included family members found him dead.
But helping families keeps volunteers going.
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