SUMNER COUNTY, Tenn. (WZTV) — It’s been more than six months and there’s still no sign of Sebastian Rogers. Now, TikTok users are raising money to put up billboards of the Sumner County autistic teen nationwide.
The two creators are known as @bbq_lady and @Tammyyyee on TikTok.
The two decided to help fund a billboard for Sebastian Rogers, who is the boy vanished without a trace on Feb. 25.
When TikTok user @bbq_lady went live, their effort got a lot more attention than they were both expecting.
“It was like a snowball effect. All of these large creators started coming in and then their following started coming in and then it just kept going from there,” @Tammyyyee explained.
It reached so many people across the nation that TikTok user Emily Crawford from Seattle saw it and matched the donations she received.
“Missing kids hold a very special place in my heart because they need advocacy and it falls on our shoulders to promote that,” Crawford said.
Now, @bbq_lady says they’ve selected 104 billboards across the country to raise national awareness about Rogers.
“We did hand select these based on getting as much exposure in the most heavily trafficked patterns along the interstate,” @bbq_lady explained.
She adds these billboards could make millions of impressions to raise awareness about what Rogers looks like, the fact that he is still missing, and that the FBI is offering a $50,000 reward.
“Somewhere, somebody has seen him and will maybe call that and now that the FBI has actually added a reward that we’re hoping that also that will trigger someone to make that phone call,” @Tammyyyee said.
Once they see how many impressions their billboards get, they say they will adjust the locations accordingly.
Currently, they are giving themselves a $1,000 budget each day, and if Rogers is found sooner, then they will donate the rest of the money for other missing children cases.
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