Southern Star Search and Rescue, a local nonprofit focused on aiding the community, recently marked its first year of operation.

Established Aug. 1, 2022, the organization is the only team in the Alabama Association of Rescue Squads south of Montgomery that has Nationally Certified K9s and Handlers. The nonprofit additionally focuses on educating law enforcement, fire departments, the public, emergency management agencies and other rescue teams in the Baldwin County area.

"We are an all-volunteer group that does not charge for our services, and we are available to assist law enforcement 24/7," said Sam Strite, treasurer of South Star Search and Rescue.

Strite added that this search and rescue organization is different from the others in the area.

"We are unique primarily because we have 10 Nationally Certified K-9s, over 60 years of search and rescue experience along the Gulf Coast, have collaborative computing qualifications, we have cell phone forensic skills to assist law enforcement and have the ability to run community-wide, large searches," he said.

Within the year of establishment, Southern Star Search and Rescue members have been involved in over 10 searches on land and water. Other milestones include assisting the Baldwin County Sheriff's Office in presenting its "Shining Star" summer program to area elementary schools, helping the Foley Police Department in three crime scene investigations, aiding the Gulf Shores Police Department in a bone identification case, locating a missing 73-year-old man with the Daphne Police Department and Daphne Search and Rescue and more.

National Certification for K9s entails testing by a qualified evaluator.

"Since a K-9 is trained to respond only to human scents, the tester will often hide animal parts along the trail to the hidden human source to see if the K-9's attention is diverted," Strite said. "All of this, plus the length of time it takes the K-9 to find the source, determines whether or not the K-9 receives certification."

The treasurer explained that his team has weekly training sessions to ensure the K9s stay up-to-date with technology and remain proficient.

"Our dogs wear GPS collars so they can be tracked when they are searching, and the search commander needs to stay in practice on how to run searches and how to keep track of everyone out searching and where they are," he said.

These dogs are trained in various environments such as urban, rural and on water.

While this organization assists first responders, Southern Star Search and Rescue seeks to make the community aware of their willingness to assist the public as well.

"We work hard to get our name out to the public because when we assist law enforcement on criminal cases there is no publicity, so the public doesn't hear what we do," Strite said. "Our members are very dedicated people who want to help others."