What began as a routine troop meeting turned into a rescue mission when local Scouts helped find a missing 11-year-old child on Monday evening.

• The Fort Walton Beach Police Department responded to a report of a missing child in the Ferry Park area around 7 p.m. on April 7. The child, wearing only a tank top, was considered at risk with temperatures dropping into the 50s.

As officers from FWBPD and Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office launched their search, they stopped by the meeting location of Troop 544 of Scouting America’s Gulf Coast Council, which borders Ferry Park.

“My scouts and I were approached by local law enforcement and informed that there was a missing 11-year-old kid,” said Joe Kennedy, who has served as Scoutmaster for 20 years. “He had been gone for about an hour.”

Without hesitation, one of the older Scouts suggested they help find the missing child. The troop quickly organized into patrols and divided the park into search zones.

Three or four Scouts who knew the missing child personally conducted a quick drive through the neighborhood with an Assistant Scoutmaster. The Scouts called out the child’s name and ultimately found him hiding behind some bushes.

• The Scouts were able to calm the child until police arrived to reunite him with his family. The entire search operation lasted about an hour, with the child found safe and unharmed.

“Monday night was the scariest night of my life. For the time my child was missing, my world stopped,” said Erica Ocasio, the child’s mother, in a message posted to the Police Department’s Facebook page. “The way our community came together, dropping everything to search for my child… it still brings me to tears.”

Ocasio expressed profound gratitude to everyone involved in finding her child.

• “To every volunteer who showed up, to Troop 544, to every officer with Fort Walton Beach PD and Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office who moved quickly and treated this like it was their own child missing, thank you,” she wrote. “Because of all of you, my child is home safe.”

“I am extremely proud of my Scouts,” Kennedy said. “I cannot recall a time that I’ve been prouder of a group of young men in my 20 years as a Scoutmaster.”

The Fort Walton Beach Police Department expressed gratitude to both law enforcement partners and the approximately 100 community volunteers who participated in the search, including the Scouts from Troop 544.

“This event is a powerful example of the strength of our partnerships and the compassion of the community we are honored to serve and protect,” the department stated in a press release.

For Kennedy, the incident reinforced the value of scouting in the community. “This is why I stay in Scouting,” he said. “Scouting is alive and well.”