ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 27, 1996 TAG: 9612270032
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: PROVIDENCE, R.I.
SOURCE: JODY McPHILLIPS KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
THE NUMBER IS 1-800-TO-BE-SAFE, and volunteers such as Flo Coningford are its voices of refuge and hope.
When Alisa called at 11:20 Tuesday morning, Flo Coningford took the call. Alisa, a 17-year-old runaway, was somewhere in New Jersey.
Nervous and hesitant, she wanted Travelers Aid to call her mother. She wasn't sure of her mother's new last name, but Coningford finally found the woman, at 11:29, at her job at a nursing home in West Virginia.
The last time Alisa had called home, three months earlier, her stepfather hung up. ``That's probably why she wanted me to call her mother at work,'' said Coningford, who has learned a lot about runaways in three years at Travelers Aid.
She and a half-dozen others answer the phones seven days a week.
This year, for the first time, AT&T is running a heart-rending television commercial showing a teen-age boy reuniting with his mother after calling the number Alisa used: 1-800-TO-BE-SAFE.
The national ad campaign has turned the usual trickle of calls into a torrent. Last year, about 1,000 children called. Monday night alone, more than 300 called, from all over the country.
``It's a tear-jerker, a really nice ad,'' says Karyn Vaughn-Fritz of AT&T. ``The holiday season is an emotional time, and we wanted to get the message out that this service is available and AT&T is a part of it.''
She declined to say how much the communications giant is paying for the service, or for the ad campaign, which will run though the holidays.
Travelers Aid has run the hot line with AT&T funding since 1990. If counselors can't connect the runaways with their families, they will refer them to services nearby.
The counselors say the work can be draining, but also exhilarating. Coningford, in fact, was still bubbling Tuesday over a call she took Sunday night.
His name was Sean, and he was 12.
His parents had gone through a bad divorce, and he was miserable. Things came to a head when he brought home a report card with too many C's. He told Coningford his dad had grounded him for two weeks, which meant he couldn't see his mother or grandparents over Christmas. He said nobody cared about his pain. So he took a backpack and hit the road.
But it was getting dark and cold, and he was scared and getting hungry.
``He wouldn't tell me his name. He wouldn't call 911,'' said Coningford. ``I was on the phone for 21/2 hours with this kid. Normally, I would just refer him to a local agency, but he was so young and he was on the street.''
Eventually Sean told her he was in Sterling, Pa. Other counselors ran for maps and reference books; they searched in vain for Sterling.
Coningford pressed Sean for more information.
Near Exit 26, off Route 95, he told her.
They found the nearest sheriff's office, which sent a car.
No Sean.
Coningford kept Sean talking, about his problems, his parents, her difficulties as a single mother, the fights she'd had with her kids and the great relationship they have today. He would get past this, she assured him. There was help available.
Finally some last shell of reserve cracked, and Sean came clean. He was in Northern Virginia, near the access road to Washington Dulles International Airport. In minutes, she had him talking to a nearby police dispatcher; police picked him up and took him to a shelter for the night.
Monday night, Sean called back, looking for his friend Flo.
``He said he was back home and had worked it out with his father and that he could go to see his mother,'' she said.
``He said, `Thank you, Flo.'
``I said, `Have a nice Christmas.'
``And he said, `You, too.'''
LENGTH: Medium: 78 linesby CNB