White Oak Foundation

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WHITE OAK FOUNDATION FEATURED ON "MISSING"

Pictured above are (from left to right): Julia Leschik, the host of RTL's hit reality show"Missing," White Oak's Executive Director, Melisha Mitchell, and Hon-Mi Yang, who is the head of research for "Missing." The three gentleman pictured in the back row are, respectively, the program's sound engineer, the director and the assistant director.

WHITE OAK HELPS ADOPTEE REUNITE WITH BIRTH SISTER ON POPULAR REALITY TV SHOW

Like many of the hundreds of adoption searches that come to the White Oak Foundation each year, this one began with a phone call.

"Hello," the young woman said in a foreign accent of indeterminate origin. "My name is Hon-Mi Yang, and I work for a German television channel called RTL. We are trying to locate a couple who live in Belleville, IL, and found you guys thanks to your web site."

Hon-Mi then went on to explain that "Missing," the reality TV show for which she worked, had unearthed the first names (Dawn and Jim) and ages (29 and 31 at the time of the adoption) of the adoptive parents of the 22-year-old adoptee who was the object of a search being conducted for one of the show's upcoming episodes. What they hoped White Oak could assist with was figuring out the last name of this southern Illinois family.

Using publicly available databases and the information provided by Hon-Mi, we put together two lists of possible matches: the first list showed all of the Dawn's living in Belleville who were born the same year as the adoptive mother; the second list included all of the men named James living in Belleville who were the same age as the adoptive father. A comparison of the two lists quickly yielded two perfect matches: a woman named Dawn and a man named Jim with the same last name who lived at the same address in Belleville, and who were indeed the proud parents of a German girl whom they had adopted in the 1980s.

Six months after Hon-Mi's phone call, the show's star, Julia Leschik, and her 4-person crew showed up at the White Oak Foundation's offices in Chicago to film a segment for the show. The following day they headed to Belleville where they filmed the adoptee's tearful reunion with her German sister who had been flown in from Germany by the television show.

The episode was shown on RTL (which is watched by viewers in Belgium, Luxemburg, Switzerland and the Netherlands in addition to throughout Germany) earlier this year.

A not-for-profit
organization offering
a wide range of
programs & services
aimed at facilitating the
post-adopton experience
for Illinois adoptees &
their birth and
adoptive families...

for additional information:

ILtreesurgeon@aol.com

or call: 312-666-5721