Its Been a Tough Decision

It feels very surreal to be in this situation, where we are willing to accept financial help from kind and generous people, but we could sure use some help. Since so many people have asked if they could donate some money, we have decided to put a PayPal button on this website, and hopefully on Facebook. If anyone feels inclined to help us while we are searching for Owen, we will be forever grateful!

People can use PayPal to donate using their account there, OR enter their credit card info if they don't have an account.

Door-to-Door Marketing Companies - Can Anyone Help With Names?

Thank you Nik Greene for the excellent suggestion regarding contacting the people who run Shambhalah. They would certainly have a list of vendors, and perhaps someone there was selling dreamcatchers. Is there anyone reading this who was at Shambhalah that remembers if there was?

We are trying to find out the names of companies that market dreamcatchers, sun catchers, wind chimes (and other craft items) by door-to-door selling. So far, we have been in contact with Nordlys Marketing in Richmond but they are only suppliers of the products.

We have been told that the Unification Church has van-loads of people going door-to-door across the country.

Does anyone know of any other companies that market door-to-door? They seem to recruit backpackers as sellers. We are going to look at hostel bulletin boards today.

We Are Receiving Tips From Vancouver Island

CTV-TV story:

• http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20101126/bc_owen_dream_catchers_101126/20101126?hub=BritishColumbiaHome

The Times Colonist in Victoria has two news stories today:

• http://www.timescolonist.com/news/missing+Aussie+Saanich/3890024/story.html
• http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Missing+possibly+seen+Nanaimo/3886904/story.html

Please keep your eyes posted! If you believe you see him, the police request that you keep him in sight and phone 9-1-1.

CBC News - BC- Australian band joins search for missing man

The CBC continues to be supportive of our efforts to find Owen and have done another report, this time about The Firetrees, an Australian band that is touring BC, and who are publicizing the fact that Owen is missing.

   View the CBC video here.

Thank you Firetrees!

Donations Are Gratefully Accepted

An account with TD Canada Trust is now open to collect financial donations that the Rooney family can use to help cover expenses while they continue to look for Owen. Please consider making a donation. Lots of small donations will add up and truly help this family out.

To donate, walk into any branch of TD Canada Trust. You will need the following information:

• Branch #9208
• Account #6412347

Please note that the Branch and Account #s are needed in order to make a donation.

Thank you!!

Update

We have no verfied sightings of Owen yet. We are currently in Vancouver, visiting homeless shelters, soup kitchens, Stanley Park, etc. Also walking the streets, talking to homeless people and asking if they have seen him.

We have also gone to taxi companies and left his poster there.

The RCMP has suggested that we contact the ski hills in BC and Alberta. Owen worked at Big White ski hill for the past two winters.

Yesterday we went to Rogers Arena, which is where the Canucks hockey games are played, to see what they can do to help up publicize our plight. We are hoping something will come of that. Thank you to the person who left that idea!

CBC did a video in Vancouver last week. View it here: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/11/16/bc-owen-rooney-search-stanley-park.html

Website Devoted to Finding Missing Young Men in Canada, US

The website is called Footprints At The Rivers Edge and Owen is featured on this page:

• http://footprintsattheriversedge.blogspot.com/2010/11/101410-owen-rooney-24-grand-forks-bc.html

This website is doing a great service! Thank you.

Does Anyone Have This Contact Information?

Someone gave us an excellent suggestion:

• Get list of all the homeless shelters & inner city mental health outreach programs in BC together and start faxing off his missing info page. Then I'd do the same for all the provinces in territories.

We are unsure about how to access mental outreach programs. How does one do so?

Where does one get a list of all the homeless shelters in BC, Alberta, etc?

Thank you for a great suggestion!

Owen's Interests - Suggestions for Where he May Hang Out

Thanks to a suggestion from TS in Calgary, here are some of Owen's interests. He loves:

• snow boarding
• long boarding
• he has played volley ball during the summer in Kelowna
• loves his music, though he doesn't play any instruments
• electronic games

More Great Suggestions for Posters

Thank you, to those of you who have given us more suggestions. I change them to a post here, as the Comments are a little hidden compared to a post:

From Dave:
Have you checked the Ferrie's? Or Vancouver Island. If he is continuing to move west. There is a possibility that he could be out there. I will contact a few people I know and see if they can post his picture. I live in New Westminster near the skytrain. I will post some of his photo's.

Thanks Dave! Great ideas!!

Info regarding where the poster can be printed from is on the post titled For Those of You Who Would Like to Help or simply click here to go straight to the poster.

Posters in Cranbrook, BC

Thank you to our Anonymous helper in Cranbrook. As was stated in a Comment box:

In Cranbrook posters are up at the public library where the homeless guys go during the day to stay warm, the Husky Gas station where the truckers gas up and the Tamarack Shopping Centre. Posters have also been dropped in the mail slot of the Food Bank which was closed today and the Salvation Army to be put up at the soup kitchen. It was left at the thrift store side because the soup kitchen side was closed for the afternoon.

Thank you!!

More Thoughts on Where to Put Posters

From an Anonymous commenter:   "If possible put up posters at the public libraries, shopping centers and colleges too. Now that the cold weather has come the homeless guys go to them to stay warm until the shelters open in the evening. At least that is what they do here and no one hassles them if they blend in."   Excellent ideas! Thank you!!

Owen Received a Head Injury

Thanks to the Anonymous person who left a Comment under the "For Those of You Who Would Like to Help" post.

Anonymous suggested that we would be wise to mention that "Owen may have a head injury and be confused and afraid. If you have seen or given him help please tell the RCMP. At this time it is not clear which direction he may have traveled. He may try to reach a friend in Alberta and may travel through Cranbrook."

This is all so true. We feel that he may not know who he even is. Luckily he has an Australian accent, so please look twice at any male who has one. Owen's hair would likely be longer than in the pictures above, and he may have a beard by now.

If Owen knew who he was, he would have returned to Kelowna for his paycheck and to his apartment there, but he has not.

Posters Are Being Put Up in Alberta

So far, I have the following reports of posters being posted:

• Shay has reported that she is putting up posters around Banff, including the Brewster bus station.
• Ada, who works at the University of Calgary, is putting up posters on campus.

Thanks to both of you!! We appreciate your caring and generosity very much.

If you are putting up posters, please let us know in the Comments box below, so that we can add their whereabouts to the list above.

For Those of You Who Would Like to Help

We have a poster with Owen's picture on it. If you would like to print it out and distribute it to places like soup kitchens, shelters, Greyhound Bus Depots, gas stations, shop windows and any other places you can think of, we would VERY much appreciate it. Also, long distance trucking companies, in case a driver has picked him up when he was hitch-hiking.

Either click on the poster or click here to go to a PDF copy of the poster.

Then click File > Save a copy and then you can print it.

OR

Under the File menu you can simply click Print.

If you could tell us here, in the Comments box, where you have put up posters that will be very useful to others who are also distributing the posters.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

We Could Use Some Help in Alberta

We are still in Grand Forks, BC searching here. Are there any people in Calgary, Edmonton, Grande Prairie, Lethbridge, Fort MacLoed, etc, who could help us by putting up posters and inquiring at homeless shelters?

Please phone 1-778-686-3534  or email  murielneale @ gmail.com.

Thank you!!!

Owen's Has Two Tattoos

This tattoo is on his right calf:

This tattoo is on his shoulder:

We Will Check Homeless Shelters

We will definitely start checking shelters in the main cities. We have been concentrating our efforts in BC but with our new information we will try Alberta as well.

Thank you for the twitter suggestion. We haven't used it yet.
Suggestions are gratefully accepted as we are Australian.

RCMP Re-enactment Video

Focus of Search Moves to Alberta

"The parents of a missing Australian man are turning their eyes to Alberta in search of their son.

Owen Rooney, 24, spent the summer in Kelowna, B.C., after working the previous winter at nearby Big White Ski resort."


Read more: http://www.theprovince.com/news/Search+missing+Australian+turns+from+Alberta/3803614/story.html#ixzz14r22SsUj

CHBC TV Video from Mid October

A CHBC TV video, which I can't seem to embed here, so please click on the link to view:

http://www.chbcnews.ca/video/index.html?releasePID=A585ldEp9iL4JO5Y6tWGjpjzvp3P6UtB

Search & Rescue

Grand Forks Search & Rescue has conducted searches of the following areas:

• All of Observation Mountain, bordered on the south by Coalshute Rd, then crossing the North Fork Rd, up Hardy Mt Rd to Outlook Rd on the west, and to Eagle Ridge Rd on the north
• From Hwy 3 on the south, from the cliffs at the base of the mountain on the west, then north to Hardy Mt Rd and uphill to Outlook Rd and to Donaldson Drive to the east.
• From Eagle Ridge Rd north to Niagara townsite, which is where the Old North Fork Rd rejoins the North Fork Rd, which is about 10 km from Hwy 3.
• Search & Rescue has suggested that the Eagle Ridge area should be searched again, as the searching was not as quite as thorough as it could have been

If homeowners were not at home, S & R did not search the property. We therefore ask that if you were not spoken to by S & R, could you please search your outbuildings and unused vehicles?

Barry at S & R asks that you do not search anywhere that you do not feel safe doing so.

Map of area searched. Click to enlarge. Yellow area needs further searching.

Thank you!

Suggestions

Thank you Muriel for this site.

The family can use this site for people who have connections with the search for Owen.

Please let us know:

• If you have searched your property or elsewhere.
• If you have seen Owen's posters in which town.
• Suggestions for which areas have not been covered.

And most of all, let us know if you think you have seen him. With his head injuries he may be unsure of who he is.

With your help we will bring him home.

Kind regards to all xox

Video