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In support of
BellSouth’s initiative to aid the AMBER Alert program, the
BellSouth Pioneer Volunteers will begin
to post AMBER Alerts on the regional and chapter Web sites
November 1, 2003. If there is an active alert, an AMBER Alert icon
on the
www.bellsouthpioneers.org homepage will appear and the AMBER
Alert will be accessible immediately. The AMBER Alert icon also
will be posted on the Web site homepage of the BellSouth Pioneer
chapter in the state from which the alert originated.
In March 2003,
BellSouth announced a company-wide initiative to bolster AMBER
Alert programs across its nine-state region through a
communication system that notifies 15,000 BellSouth field
technicians in support of search efforts in child abduction cases.
In addition, BellSouth now distributes the AMBER Alerts from its
region to customers of BellSouth® Internet Service on their portal
and to BellSouth employees on their intranet portal.
The BellSouth
program represents one of the nation’s largest corporate
commitments to the AMBER Alert program, according to national
missing children organizations. The AMBER Plan, which stands for
America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response, was established
in response to the 1996 abduction and murder of nine-year-old
Amber Hagerman in Arlington, Texas. It is a voluntary partnership
between law enforcement agencies and broadcasters to activate an
urgent bulletin in the most serious child-abduction cases. The
goal of the AMBER Alert is to enlist community support in the
search for and safe recovery of the abducted child.
The BellSouth
initiative is coordinated with state law enforcement agencies that
currently issue the AMBER alerts
to television and radio stations through Emergency Alert System.
Under its program, BellSouth receives the same alerts from the
agencies and distributes them directly to technicians and its
webmasters through electronic messaging.
“It’s a matter of
providing an added resource to a successful community effort that,
ultimately, will benefit us all,”
said Duane Ackerman, Chairman and CEO of BellSouth.
The BellSouth
initiative is far-reaching and multifaceted because the alerts
reach field personnel, all BellSouth employees, BellSouth Internet
Service customers, and visitors to the BellSouth Pioneer Web
sites. BellSouth
has more than 1.5 million Internet Service customers and about
76,000 employees, including about 15,000 technicians across the
Southeast.
Nationally, more
than 105 children have been recovered as a result of AMBER
Alerts.
View
past Amber Alerts in our region on the BellSouth®
Internet Service website. |
