Christmas and the festive season is a time of joy for many but sadly it is also one of the hardest times of the year.

Thousands of children will run away, adults will go missing and hundreds of families will be facing another Christmas with a loved one missing. The stories below show just what a heart-breaking time of year this can be.

Your donation of £10 could help us answer two phone calls - phone calls that could reunite families, keep runaways safe from harm and that will show people in desperate situations that they are not alone.

Please support Missing People this Christmas and you could help us be a lifeline when someone disappears.

Help me be a lifeline this Christmas

My name is Kate and I am a helpline volunteer for Missing People. In my everyday life I am a mum but I also spend four hours every week providing advice and support when a child or vulnerable adult disappears. For many of the people I speak to, this will be the first Christmas they will spend without someone they love. For others, like Tricia, it will be yet another Christmas spent living in limbo with an empty space at the dining table and unopened presents under the tree. And, tragically, this Christmas more people will go missing, leaving loved ones behind who are desperate to find them.

I volunteer so that they have someone to turn to. Someone who can help them find their loved one and someone they can talk to when it becomes too much to bear. 
Missing People is the only organisation that is there, 24 hours a day to search when someone disappears and to give support to their families.

Your donation will help deliver this vital service at Christmas.

Another Christmas without my big brother.

This will be the fourth Christmas without my brother Steve.  Another year has gone by and we still don’t know where he is or what happened to him. Anniversaries, birthdays, Christmases…these are days of celebration for most people but for me they are the hardest days of the year  That’s why it is just so important to have someone at the end of a phone to talk to, day or night; someone who understands and listens. They have been a lifeline for me when I have been at my lowest.

Please support Missing People this Christmas to make sure that families like mine don’t have to go through this heartache alone.