Ten left-behind parents awarded financial grants totaling $25,000
The Bring Sean Home Foundation (BSHF) today awarded financial grants totaling $25,000 to ten left-behind parents whose children are victims of international parental child abduction. The grants were made possible by donations received by BSHF from individuals, businesses and charities across the nation.
As we commemorate International Missing Children’s Day (May 25), BSHF is pleased to be in the position to support victims of international parental child abduction and to distribute funds to left-behind parents who are often financially devastated by the abduction of their children. Government resources to financially assist left-behind families are extremely limited. Left-behind parents are forced to fight expensive legal battles on their own, at home and in the foreign country where their children were taken. The purpose of these grants is to help defray legal and travel-related expenses directly associated with a parent’s efforts to repatriate or visit their abducted children.
BSHF’s 2013 grant recipients all reside in the United States with children abducted to both Hague Convention and non-Hague countries including Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Japan, Egypt, Turkey, and the Dominican Republic.
“Financial assistance is the number one need for parents whose children have been abducted abroad,” said David Goldman, BSHF Director and Co-founder. “Parents whose children have been internationally abducted face overwhelming obstacles because of efforts by the abductors to break them, both emotionally and financially.”
Mark DeAngelis, BSHF Executive Director and Co-founder, said, “It is not uncommon for left-behind parents to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting for the rightful return of their abducted children. It is our hope that these grants, while only a fraction of the overall expenses incurred, will help to ease some of the tremendous financial burden felt by these parents.”
According to the U.S. State Department, more than 7,000 American children have been abducted from the United States in the last five years, with a reported return rate of less than 40 percent.
The Bring Sean Home Foundation is a registered 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. To donate to BSHF and help continue the grant program for other left-behind parents, please visit our website at www.BringSeanHome.org. Your support is greatly appreciated.
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