Amber Alert and Second Life?

I had a very interesting experience yesterday. One of the groups I am a part of in Second Life sent out a group notice with an Amber alert. It described the vehicle, the license plate number, and where it was suspected to be heading to. I was somewhat taken aback by this and didn’t know what to think. It almost seemed inappropriate at first. Then I realized it was a wonderful social use of a virtual world. While many of us in-world don’t want intrusions from the outside, “real world”, how could we not want to be a part of the community and help out with a suspected kidnapping? We then got a report that it was resolved and the children are safe and the perpetrator has been arrested.  So, what if I hadn’t been in-world; would it still have been of any value? Well, I wasn’t in, I was checking my regular email – I have my notices from in-world forwarded to my real life email. So this makes SL a potential vehicle for real world community awareness.