Loved ones remembered on Florida Missing Adults Day

Project Cold Case held an event Friday in honor of Missing Adults Day.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Friday is Missing Adults Day in Florida, and in Jacksonville, the families living that reality came together to make sure their loved ones are not forgotten.

The atrium of Jacksonville City Hall was lined with photographs of the missing. Each family received a yellow rose: a symbol of hope that one day, they will find the closure for which they have been searching.

The Missing Adults Day event was put on by Project Cold Case, a Jacksonville-based non-profit dedicated to supporting families of unsolved homicide victims and long-term missing persons. Ryan Backman, the founder of Project Cold Case, said the day is meant to help families understand they are not alone.

“We stand together in support of missing adults, every missing adult, every story, every circumstance, those taken by violence, those who left in crisis, those struggling with mental illness or addiction. Those whose disappearance remains unexplained. And just as important, those left wondering,” Backman said.

Wilveria Sanders knows that wait all too well. The Jacksonville woman’s brother, Shelton, has been missing in South Carolina for 25 years. He was last seen on June 19, 2001 in Columbia, South Carolina. He went out to try to book hotel rooms for a bachelor party at an Embassy Suites.

Sanders shared why events like this one matter so much.

“I’ve learned that hope is not passive; hope is action. Advocacy keeps these cases alive when the world gets quiet. It keeps your loved one’s name in front of the public and reminds them they are not alone,” Sanders said.

Members of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and St. Johns County Sheriff Rob Hardwick were also in attendance pledging their support for the families of the missing.