When a loved one is reported missing, law enforcement activates quickly, but the families left waiting often face those first desperate hours alone. The first 24 to 72 hours can be particularly destabilizing, as families move between hope, fear, and confusion.

Families of missing persons are among the most acutely vulnerable populations in any community, facing spiritual, emotional, and psychological suffering that begins the moment a loved one disappears. The 2025 Greater Knoxville Report Card rates community health in East Tennessee at its most urgent designation, affirming the need for supportive services.

Hold On To Hope proposes a voluntary referral model connecting families with a trained Hope Partner within 24 hours of filing a report. Support is relational rather than clinical: grounded in faith, informed by trauma research, and focused on helping families stay steady and maintain hope while investigators do their work.

Hold On To Hope will develop volunteer training, family support resources, law enforcement referral protocols, and a pilot Hope Support Team serving the nine-county East Tennessee region, with a model designed to expand statewide.