As law enforcement investigators continue their search for missing teen Sierra LaMar, day after day, week after week, hundreds of volunteers continue to show up to help in the efforts coordinated by the KlaasKids Foundation. They search, they organize fundraisers and they continue to get the word out. The outpouring of support is heartening, and unprecedented.
“This participation is off the charts,” said Marc Klaas, founder of the KlaasKids Foundation which organized the volunteer efforts at the request of Sierra’s mother, Marlene LaMar. “Since my daughter’s case, I can’t think of another that’s generated this kind of attention.”
And Klaas has been involved in hundreds of similar search efforts during the past 20 years or so. He founded the organization which is devoted to finding missing children nationwide shortly after his 12-year-old daughter Polly Klaas was kidnapped and murdered in 1993.
And the volunteers come from all walks of life.
Annette Nevarez, 47, helped register volunteers recently. Nevarez is the mother of slain Sobrato High School freshman Tara Romero, 14, who was gunned down in a drive-by attack in Morgan Hill Nov. 4, 2011. Three of Romero’s friends were also shot in the incident at Cosmo and Del Monte avenues, but they survived.
Romero’s mother said Tara and Sierra’s paths didn’t cross much at school – Sierra only moved to Morgan Hill from Fremont less than a month before Tara died. But she thinks they would have liked each other.
“Sierra went to my daughter’s school,” Nevarez said. “I don’t know her. I know a lot of kids that saw her at school. I want to support her family any way I can.”
LaMar, 15, went missing the morning of March 16 as she left her rural north Morgan Hill home to walk to her usual bus stop.
Another volunteer, Lisa Silva, is participating in the search because her daughter, Alyssa Tacci, 18, is a friend and cheer teammate of Sierra’s. Silva is currently unemployed, as she left her job recently to take care of her ailing mother and has not returned to work.
James Dill is a real estate broker with “flexible” hours. His schedule allows him to volunteer not only for the search for Sierra, but also for the city’s public safety volunteer programs, he said one recent Wednesday at Burnett Elementary School.
He added he is surprised and impressed at the number of volunteers who have returned numerous times to help search. That Wednesday, a rainy day for trudging through the hills and fields as searchers tend to do, of the 200 volunteers who showed up, about half had been on previous searchers.
“I’ve seen quite a few familiar faces,” Dill said. “It’s overwhelming.”
It sure is. And it shows the care and level of support residents have. Let’s keep the momentum going.
For more information on the Sierra LaMar Search Center, call (408) 201-6364.
Anyone with information on the case can contact Santa Clara County Communications at 299-2311, or send an e-mail to
ti**@sh*****.org
.
During normal business hours callers can call Sheriff’s Investigators at 808-4500 or the anonymous tip line at 808-4431. Information or tips can also be sent via the Sheriff’s Office website at sccgov.org/portal/site/sheriff. Information can also be submitted by text at 421-6760.
