Foundation Responds to Brooklyn Boy's Murder

Leiby Kletzky, 8, of Brooklyn was brutally murdered and last seen walking home alone from day camp on Monday, July 11.

The Rose Brucia Educational Foundation, which focuses on stranger safety awareness, issued a statement Wednesday about the incident.

“Our hearts go out to Leiby’s family. It is now more important than ever to speak to our children, very candidly, about important techniques to keep themselves safe when parents and family members are not present,” said Matthew J. Barbis, founder and chairman of The Rose Brucia Educational Foundation. “We must become very proactive in our approach to keep our children safe.”

The foundation was developed as a result of 11-year-old Carlie Brucia’s abduction and murder in Sarasota, FL in 2004. The foundation has been working to reduce child abductions by educating and empowering young children with the techniques and mindset needed to assist them in their own safety as it relates to strangers.

Currently, there is a House Resolution which was introduced by Rep. Paul Ryan and Rep. Steve Israel last month, which will declare August 22, 2011 national “Rose Brucia Stranger Safety Awareness Day” in an effort to promote awareness about the Stranger Safety Awareness curriculum which will be available across the U.S. for all pre-schools and elementary schools, free of charge.

Teachers will be able to use each open-ended lesson plan at their discretion throughout the entire school year. The Stranger Safety Awareness Program is comprised of six volumes.  Each consecutive volume will be released every six months, with a final elementary completion date of January 2014. Under the current system, there is no formal stranger safety program in the nation’s schools.

Taking a line from , who, along with his wife Katrina, hosted The Rose Brucia Educational Foundation at their home for a function last week, Barbis said, “Edmund Burke stated that, ‘All that's necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.’ It is time that we do everything we can to stop this from happening again and again.”