Kelli Corasanti works for safety of children
Sept. 15, 2002

Photo by ELIZABETH A. MUNDSCHENK Kelli Corasanti

By BILL FARRELL
Observer-Dispatch

When Kelli Corasanti first got involved in the Ride for Missing Children in 1997, she was pregnant with her first child.

The organization needed volunteers and when she asked what she could do, she was told: you can chair a committee.

Corasanti, a child development instructor at Mohawk Valley Community College, chose the schools committee.

“My interest is in teaching.” she said. She’s been chairwoman of that committee since.

But she’s done a lot more than just head a committee.

Her nominator, Frank Williams, said that through her work with The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, Mohawk Valley chapter, Corasanti has touched the lives of thousands of local children.

“Kelli has coordinated and personally visited area schools teaching young children valuable lessons on abduction prevention and child safety,” said Williams, who is ride chairman.

He said her work for the ride has resulted in more than 200 schools across New York state being able to participate in abduction prevention education and in raising posters of missing children.

Since 1995, when the local group joined the national center, it has distributed 1.9 million posters involving 666 missing children, 370 of whom have been recovered safely.

“We get involved when it’s a targeted distribution, when investigators believe a child will be found in a targeted area,” Corasanti said. “That’s when they call our center and we inundate that area with posters.”

Posters don’t just happen. They cost 20 cents each to make, and that speaks to another area where Corasanti has taken a lead role.

She developed the Pennies for Posters program, wherein local school children raise money to aid in the search and recovery effort.

“We’re talking cents, pennies,” Corasanti said.

“When you break it down like that, most kids can understand how that can help in our efforts.”

Corasanti, who gave birth to her third child in early August, said it’s not hard to understand why people want to help such a cause.

“I think whenever anyone hears about a missing child, they’re touched by it. You feel terrible for the family and the child,” the Olean native said.

She’s been a member of the Missing Children’s Speakers Bureau since 1999 and speaks at schools and to other groups about safety.

“We talk to the youngsters about the eight rules of safety, including take a friend when you go outside to play, and if someone is doing something that makes you feel uncomfortable, say no and tell an adult.

“The kids are very receptive. Most know these rules but they love to have tools. It gives them a sense of empowerment.”

As Williams says: “Kelli is a role model who teaches others as she works to make our children safer ... one child at a time.”