Contact Information

PROJECT PRIDE
300 Shaw Road
South San Francisco, CA 94080
San Francisco County

Contact: Steve Navarro
(650) 87-CHILD (24453)
(800) 549-KIDS
(650) 583-8596 Fax
donations@projectpride.info
Federal Id # 94-1516921

Board of Directors

Mission

Mission
Project Pride is a grassroots nonprofit organization serving the greater San Francisco Bay Area. For fifteen years Project Pride has been dedicated to helping find abducted, exploited and missing children. Project Pride is part of a national effort that is working together to keep our streets, homes, and neighborhoods safe for children. Project Pride’s primary focus is education, prevention, and safety, for families: and public awareness through the mass distribution of photographs of missing children. In addition to the distribution of photos of missing children through various mediums, Project Pride also acts as a liaison between Law Enforcement and Families, and provides a 24 hour Emergency Hotline (1-800-549-KIDS) to provide counseling and assistance to victims and families. Project Pride also networks with other non-profit missing children’s organizations to maximize efforts to return children to their families, and hosts an informative website featuring missing children.

Vision
Project Pride has a vision that one-day children will be free to play and grow-up in safe neighborhoods and homes, without the fear of being abducted by strangers, family members or becoming lost. Project Pride’s purpose is to teach children and families prevention, and to give them the knowledge that if, an abduction, should occur, Project Pride will utilize every resource to find and return the child to their home.

History
Founded in 1983, Project Pride originally provided services to people afflicted by drug and alcohol abuse. In 1990, because of a growing need, Project Pride shifted its focus, and services from addiction, to helping find missing and abducted children. Currently, Project Pride is restructuring the organization and offices to better serve the community. We are building upon, and expanding our educational services, while supporting the expansion of resources in South bay. Project Pride is an all volunteer organization currently transitioning from being a project owned and run under the direction of by Chabad of San Francisco. In 2004, understanding the need for growth and a formal organization of services, Project Pride left the auspices of Chabad. Today, Project Pride has an independent working Board of Directors, and has built and opened a permanent office in the South bay. Though presently under the 501(c) 3 status of Adath Israel Congregation we are not a religious organization.

Purpose
Project Pride diligently works to make the world a safer place for children. This is no small task, especially with the realization that a child disappears every 40 seconds in America, with over one million children disappearing each year! Figures show that nearly 114,600 children a year are targets of attempted abductions. While, non-family members account for 4,600 abductions of children a year, family members abduct another 354,100 (These are situations where a family member either (1) took a child in violation of a custody agreement or decree or (2) in violation of a custody agreement or decree, failed to return a child at the end of a legal or agreed upon visit). These figures don't include the nearly half a million runaways, and the 127,000-child abandonment.s each year.

Project Pride has learned first hand that a missing or abducted child affects not only the parents and family of the child, but the community as a whole. A recent study conducted by the National Center for Missing Children shows that children from low-income and ethnic backgrounds have a higher incidence of being sexually exploited by adults, stranger abduction, and running away from home. As such, Project Pride believes that it is imperative to partner with local and state law enforcement agencies, and businesses to do aggressive outreach into these communities to stop the flow of missing and exploited children.

How is this achieved? Project Pride engages the community by using public education as our first line of defense. The next step is rapid response, followed by due diligence and by never giving up until the missing children are returned home. The County of San Francisco is home to 751,000 residents. Of these, roughly 18.5% (138,935) are children between the ages of 1 and 17. Project Pride strives to improve the lives of children by teaching parents how to properly gather and store pertinent information about their own children, educating the public on how to spot and report a missing child, and how to unite as neighborhoods to keep their children safe. It is the goal of Project Pride to ensure that all children in San Francisco (and San Mateo) County are registered with their respective law enforcement agencies, and that communities are educated about safety, and parents understand the importance of having DNA and Fingerprint information on their children.