{"id":9838,"date":"2013-05-11T20:01:02","date_gmt":"2013-05-12T04:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.spokeo.com\/compass\/?p=9838"},"modified":"2022-11-27T16:41:32","modified_gmt":"2022-11-28T00:41:32","slug":"a-mothers-day-reunion-an-inspirational-true-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spokeo.com\/compass\/a-mothers-day-reunion-an-inspirational-true-story\/","title":{"rendered":"A Mother\u2019s Day Reunion: An Inspirational True Story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"embed-youtube\">\n<iframe style=\"width:100%; text-align:center;\" height=\"415\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/MV22QZKGrNs\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div>\n<style>\n.embed-youtube {\n    position: relative;\n    padding-bottom: 56.25%; \/* - 16:9 aspect ratio (most common) *\/\n    \/* padding-bottom: 62.5%; - 16:10 aspect ratio *\/\n    \/* padding-bottom: 75%; - 4:3 aspect ratio *\/\n    padding-top: 30px;\n    height: 0;\n    overflow: hidden;\n}\n\n.embed-youtube iframe,\n.embed-youtube object,\n.embed-youtube embed {\n    border: 0;\n    position: absolute;\n    top: 0;\n    left: 0;\n    width: 100%;\n    height: 100%;\n}\n<\/style>\n\n\n\n<p>Helen was only 15 years old in April of 1992 when she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. At the time she was living with her parents in the Cleveland, Ohio area and the baby was given up for adoption but she never forgot about that little boy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meanwhile, one loving family had been blessed with a baby boy. &nbsp;\u201dWe knew Jonathan was our blessing,\u201d said Mollie, the mother who raised the baby boy. \u201cWe\u2019d always talked to him about how he was adopted and how his birth mother was thinking about him too. We&#8217;d even done our own search for her.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI never expected anything to ever happen. I thought I\u2019d be searching forever,\u201d said Helen as she thought back on her solo search efforts without knowing that she too, was being searched for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Until one day in April this year, as they approached Jonathan\u2019s 21st birthday, Helen stumbled upon postings on the Internet that praised the work of a \u201csearch angel\u201d named&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/spokeoangels.com\/angels\/kellie-walls-sharpe\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kellie Sharpe<\/a>.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spokeoangels.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Search angels<\/a>&nbsp;are volunteers who donate their time and resources to help individuals touched by adoption, foster care and other family events, search for their family members while providing guidance and support . There are many of them that have been&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spokeo.com\/compass\/search-angel-spotlight-priscilla-sharp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">working behind the scenes for the last 30 years<\/a>&nbsp;and with the emergence of the internet and people search tools like&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spokeo.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Spokeo<\/a>, they\u2019ve been empowered to help more people in search of family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Filled with both excitement and anxiety, Helen wrote an emotional plea asking Kellie for some of her time. It was while Kellie was&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spokeo.com\/compass\/spokeo-search-angels-at-the-aac-national-conference-on-adoption\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">attending a conference to be introduced<\/a>&nbsp;as one of the prestigious&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spokeo.com\/compass\/announcing-the-winners-of-the-spokeo-search-angel-awards\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">winners of the Spokeo Search Angel Award<\/a>&nbsp;in Cleveland, only a few minutes away from Helen, that she received the email and wrote back as soon as she got back to her hotel room that evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI am always searching no matter where I am or what I\u2019m doing,\u201d said Kellie. \u201cMy family understands that when someone has been searching for years, I can\u2019t wait till tomorrow to get back to them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kellie searched during the conference breaks, quietly on her phone during workshops and late at night in her room. That hard work paid off when she located Jonathan and his family in only three days. A few key details (like Jonathan\u2019s birth date and county) made for a good start, but it was the power of the Internet and online people search tools like <a href=\"blogtest.spokeo.com\">Spokeo<\/a>, that kicked the search into high gear and helped her pinpoint him. New opportunities had taken the family out of the Ohio area and they were now living in Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOne of the core capabilities of Spokeo is organizing massive amounts of information to create simple and yet comprehensive online profiles about people,\u201d says Angela Saverice-Rohan, General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer for Spokeo. \u201cThese profiles help people like Kellie and Helen find the family members they are searching for. It is truly an inspiring use of our technology.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After that first phone call to the family home, Jonathan and Helen have been talking regularly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re all very excited to meet Helen,\u201d said Mollie. \u201cThis is going to be a wonderful family event.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The families chose Mother\u2019s Day weekend to meet face to face for the first time and they invited Spokeo to help put together this amazing reunion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.spokeo.com\/compass\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/hug.jpg?ssl=1\" data-rel=\"penci-gallery-image-content\" ><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1170\" height=\"658\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.spokeo.com\/compass\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/hug.jpg?resize=1170%2C658&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"hug\" class=\"wp-image-9853\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With so many people searching, it took someone with the \u201csharpe\u201d searching expertise to bring everyone together \u2013 Search Angel Kellie Sharpe that is!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cShe\u2019s still there for me if I need someone to talk to,\u201d said Helen about Kellie. \u201cShe\u2019s a wonderful person.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We couldn\u2019t agree more. Happy Mother\u2019s Day ladies! It is our honor to continue supporting amazing search angels like Kellie, courageous birth moms like Helen and loving families like Jonathan\u2019s.&nbsp;We thank you for inviting us to be a part of this wonderful reunion and hope to continue highlighting the efforts of Search Angels everywhere as they help bring more families together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Helen was only 15 years old in April of 1992 when she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. At the time she was living with her parents in the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[638,648,644],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-connectors","category-family-advice-how-to"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Mother\u2019s Day Reunion: An Inspirational True Story - The Compass Blog | Digital Identity and People Search | Spokeo<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.spokeo.com\/compass\/a-mothers-day-reunion-an-inspirational-true-story\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Mother\u2019s Day Reunion: An Inspirational True Story - The Compass Blog | Digital Identity and People Search | Spokeo\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Helen was only 15 years old in April of 1992 when she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. 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