by Tory Friedrich, News Reporter
Miss America 2007, Lauren Nelson made an appearance on Liberty’s campus after filming public service announcements promoting online safety for kids in Liberty’s broadcast studio. She was made an honorary deputy sheriff in Bedford County for her work with its Safe Surfin’ Foundation. The program is designed to help educate parents and children on online safety.Nelson, who was crowned Miss America in January has a personal platform of online safety for children. To Nelson, this issue is much more than just a platform. She was approached by an online predator at the age of 13. Nelson was lucky and emerged from the incident without harm. However, many other children aren’t so lucky.
According to a 2001 JAMA (Journal of American Medical Association) report, “19% of the youth interviewed experienced at least 1 sexual solicitation while using the Internet in the past year and 3% reported an aggressive solicitation. Only 10% of sexual solicitations were reported to the police, an Internet service provider, or other authority. Moreover, most parents (69%) and youth (76%) had not heard of places where they could report these episodes.”
The Bedford County Sheriffs Department is doing its part to put a stop to this. They have started two organizations, Blue Ridge Thunder and Safe Surfin’ that will help to educate children, parents, and teachers about how kids can stay safe online.
Sheriff Mike Brown met Nelson when they both attended “Project Safe Child” in Washington D.C. They met and began talking about their mutual interest in online safety for children. Nelson was very interested in the work Bedford County is doing and visited Bedford to learn more. The partnership was born and they are now working side by side to help promote online safety programs.
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