Statewide Digital Billboard Campaign Aims to Find Missing Children in Texas

Clear Channel Outdoor, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children & Texas Center for the Missing Team Up to Bring Missing Kids Home

HOUSTON, May 25, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Texas Center for the Missing (TCM), The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and Clear Channel Outdoor Americas (CCOA) (NYSE: CCO) launched a new month-long campaign across Texas calling attention to the ongoing searches for local missing children. Coinciding with National Missing Children's Day (May 25), the digital out-of-home (DOOH) campaign will highlight different missing children's cases in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio to help generate leads.

Earlier today, CCOA held press conferences in each Texas market where families of the missing kids, along with local law enforcement working on these unsolved cases, spoke throughout the state and urged the public to share any information they have regarding the disappearance or whereabouts of these children, some of whom are now adults.

The country is in the midst of a persistent missing and exploited children crisis nationwide. The Texas Department of Public Safety Missing Persons Clearinghouse received 47,670 missing person reports in 2022, with 34,828 being juveniles.

Photos are one of the most vital tools for law enforcement when searching for a missing child and have the power to produce leads that can unveil crucial information and help safely recover children. The new billboard campaign enables TCM to reach a broad audience across Texas by distributing photos of missing children in targeted areas that can aid law enforcement with a search.

For this year's campaign, the child's photo is included in each message, and in some cases, the child's age progression photo is shown if the child has been missing for an extended period. Each child's image will run across multiple CCOA digital billboards in each Texas city thousands of times per day on each digital display over the next month.

"We know that photos bring missing children home and we rely on our partners like Clear Channel Outdoor to help us in our mission. We are grateful to them for the continued support to find missing children and helping to reunite families," said John McNamee, TCM CEO.

"Public safety, and child safety in particular, remains a core tenet of our corporate social responsibility efforts," said Michelle Costa, regional president, CCOA-South Central. "Our digital billboards have the ability to reach passersby in high-traffic areas as they are out and about. We hope our efforts can play a role in reuniting these children with their families."

Over the past few years, this program has resulted in more than 10 Texas children being found and returned home to their families. 

2023 Missing Children Cases featured across Texas in this program include:

Dallas: Mary "Rachel" Trlica, Julie Moseley and Lisa Wilson were last seen at the Seminary South Shopping Center on December 23, 1974. Mary has a chipped upper front tooth and a small scar on her chin. She may also be known as Rachel, or she may go by the last name Arnold. Julie has a small scar under her left eye, a scar in the middle of her forehead and a scar on her calf. Lisa has a scar on her thigh, under her left eye, middle of her forehead and on her calf. 

Houston: Rebecca Williams-Atiles was last seen on December 10, 2022 in Houston. She is 4'5" tall and weighs about 80 pounds with black hair and brown eyes. Alyssa Williams has been missing since November 5, 2020. She is an African American female, 5'2" tall weighing about 185 pounds. Her hair is black and her eyes are brown.

San Antonio: Matthew Montanez has been missing since January 17, 2022 in San Antonio. He is 16 years old, a Hispanic male, 5'8" weighing 240 pounds. Ava Baldwin was last seen on September 17, 2015. She may be in the company of her mother, Kathryn Baldwin. A felony warrant is on file for Kathryn. They may travel to Chicago, Illinois. They may be traveling in a silver 2014 Ford Escape with Illinois plates Q29-2793.

National Missing Children's Day is a reminder to all parents and guardians of the need for high-quality photographs of their children for use in case of an emergency and for the need for everyone to pay close attention to posters and photographs of missing children.

For regional missing children alerts, visit http://www.missingkids.com/RSS.

About Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc.

Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: CCO) is at the forefront of driving innovation in the out-of-home advertising industry. Our dynamic advertising platform is broadening the pool of advertisers using our medium through the expansion of digital billboards and displays and the integration of data analytics and programmatic capabilities that deliver measurable campaigns that are simpler to buy. By leveraging the scale, reach and flexibility of our diverse portfolio of assets, we connect advertisers with millions of consumers every month across more than 500,000 print and digital displays in 22 countries. More information is available at investor.clearchannel.com, clearchanneloutdoor.com and clearchannelinternational.com.

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About Texas Center for the Missing

Texas Center for the Missing (TCM) is a Houston-based non-profit and is the Amber Alert provider for the 14-county Houston-Galveston region. TCM offers crisis intervention, prevention, and community education services related to child abductions, runaways, internet lures, and endangered adults. To decrease the number of missing children, we at Texas Center for the Missing know that children and families need to be educated about how to remain safe, law enforcement needs to be trained on how and when to activate local Amber Alerts, and the community at large needs to be aware of the painful reality of these situations. Since its founding in 2000, TCM has directly served more than 289,000 children and families. In addition, TCM has trained 7,000 law enforcement officers and provided assistance in more than 1,300 missing persons cases. We are at the ready to activate community resources 24/7 to get a missing child or endangered adult home quickly and safely. Your support directly affects our ability to serve the Greater Houston community with the best and most time efficient resources available. For more information, visit centerforthemissing.org or hear from TCM CEO Beth Alberts at: http://www.givinglibrary.org/organizations/texas-center-missing.

Bringing hope and healing to the missing and their families

through crisis intervention, prevention, and community education.

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SOURCE Clear Channel Outdoor