A Day to Pray: 'Bring Our Missing Children Home'

Thursday is National Missing Children's Day, a day set aside as a reminder of the importance of working to reunite missing children with their families. The Department of Justice says it's also a day to encourage people to make child safety a priority.

The annual theme of the day is "Bringing Our Missing Children Home."

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The FBI reports that last year alone, there were more than 465,000 reports of missing children made to law enforcement in the United States.

To give you another idea of how serious a problem this is, over the last 32 years, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's toll-free hotline, 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678), has received more than 4.3 million calls.

During the month of May, the NCMEC is holding the #RockOneSock campaign to show support for missing children and their families. You're encouraged to wear one sock, take a picture or video and post it to social media using the hashtag #RockOneSock.

President Ronald Reagan proclaimed May 25 as National Missing Children's Day in 1983, and since then, the Justice Department has observed the day every year. 

Reagan set aside the day in memory of Etan Patz. The six-year-old boy vanished from a New York City street corner on May 25, 1979.