10 days ago, Missing in Minnesota posted about a missing child, a sixteen-year-old boy who was missing from Hutchinson. We are so pleased to be able to report that Dominick Curtiss was found safe five days later.

That alone is the happiest of endings to that story.

But what happened with that post is something that we are truly grateful for and something that we want you to know.

In less than a week’s time, the post about Dominick Curtiss was shared over 4,000 times and reached over 256,000 people. Those are incredible numbers!

We started this Facebook page less than one year ago as an extension of MissinginMinnesota.com.

The website was set up initially by Michael Brodkorb as a way to report on the legal developments about the adults charged in the disappearance of Samantha and Gianna Rucki. When he started, he thought by this time, the case would be closed; there would be nothing left to report on.

Unfortunately for the Rucki family, the case has not closed.

As our Facebook page gained followers we realized that we had a platform. A place to share not just reports on the Rucki case but information about missing persons, especially children, in the state of Minnesota.

We are incredibly lucky to be able to reach thousands of people with just one post. To be able to use the power of this platform to help spread important information about missing people is an absolute privilege.

This kind of information sharing did not happen for the Rucki family. There were not constantly updated posts or stories about Samantha and Gianna Rucki during most of the time they were missing. It was not until the end that the story gained attention.

For 944 days, the family searched and for many of those, they did so alone.

To have a community of people sharing information about a missing child is important for so many reasons.

We have thousands of people looking at the child’s picture, knowing the child’s name, thinking about the child. This is how missing persons are found. Look at the example of the Jasmine Block case; it was a man, who recognized Jasmine from her picture, who was able to bring her to safety.

Awareness is so important.

While we continue to report on the Rucki case, to hold the people accountable who aided in the disappearance of two teenage girls from Lakeville, Minnesota, we are honored to be able to provide a platform for sharing about other missing children.

We will help where we can, with what we can.

As you share, like and comment we encourage you to read about the Rucki case, to follow our site and join us on Twitter.