Exiled volunteers wonder if charity's plans for Caylee memorial will fizzle OS

For 12 straight weekends, Wally and Jeanine Goodnough say they traveled from their Sarasota home to Orlando for Caylee Anthony.

Along with a small group of similarly devoted volunteers, they maintained the wooded area where the girl's remains were discovered. They talked to, and cried with, people who flowed to the site. They struggled to clean what is essentially a swamp.

And they fielded questions about Bring Kids Home, the little-known charity that made a splash in August by announcing plans to build a $200,000 memorial on the spot where Caylee's body was found.

People asked the Goodnoughs: What other endeavors has the nonprofit been involved in? How much money has it collected?



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But they weren't able to answer those questions, and when they asked for basic tax information from the charity's executive director, the Goodnoughs say they were cut loose and asked not to return to the woods off Suburban Drive.

"It hurts," says Wally Goodnough, 49, who works at a glass company in Sarasota. "If we didn't love being out there, we wouldn't have spent our days out there talking to people."

Long before the charity arrived in Orlando, people from across the globe had invested their time and emotions in those woods. But it was Bring Kids Home that solicited ordinary people to donate their money.

Now, the Goodnoughs and other volunteers say they wonder whether the charity can accomplish its ambitious goals.

Memorial coming?

The volunteers in Orlando say they don't know much about the origins of Bring Kids Home, or the history of its New Jersey-based executive director, whose full name is Timothy Eric Segura.

The charity's fundraising efforts before the Caylee memorial announcement appear to be minimal, according to tax records. In 2009, its first year, BKH reported $4,000 in charitable contributions, but only $340 remained after expenses.

In 2010, the charity reported $200 in revenue and $13,585 in expenses.

The BKH website says the group is involved in "software, education and awareness materials, family counseling, cold case investigations, coaching and mentoring, [and] development of new technologies."

Requests for more specific details were rebuffed by Segura. The site says BKH, which is registered as 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, has about 100 volunteers.

On Aug. 9, what would have been Caylee Marie Anthony's 6th birthday, plans for an elaborate memorial in her honor were announced at the site off Suburban Drive. More than 100 people, including Caylee's grandparents, George and Cindy Anthony, were present as the design's renderings were unveiled.

The charity's Orlando organizer, Eddie DelValle, announced plans to buy the land and fund a $200,000 memorial through donations and partnerships with other charities. No such partnerships have been announced publicly.

Months after the memorial was announced, the wooded area where Caylee Anthony's body was found still doesn't belong to Bring Kids Home. The longtime owner of the property couldn't be reached. A real estate agent handling the property did not respond to messages about the status of discussions with BKH regarding its purchase.

It's also unclear how much money the charity has collected for the project. With the announcement of the memorial, the group began selling reservations for personalized bricks for about $80 each on its website.

Segura told the Sentinel that he only planned to sell 100, and the site now says they are sold out.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-caylee-anthony-memorial-charity-20111027,0,2974256.story