Loren O'Keeffe knows what it's like to have a loved one go missing.

That's why she has dedicated her life to supporting families in the same predicament.

When Loren's brother Daniel disappeared in July 2011, finding her younger "sidekick" became her 24/7 priority.

"There's no way I could have sat back in an office and thought about anything other than: 'where the hell is my brother, what do I need to do?'"

Key points: Every 14 minutes someone goes missing in Australia

Every 14 minutes someone goes missing in Australia For each missing person another 12 are directly impacted

Each day around 100 people go missing in Australia. Most are found within a week, but there remains around 2,000 long-term missing people.

Loren is devoted to keeping them in the public's memory, so next week 100,000 coffee cups with their images and stories will hit 20 Melbourne cafes to start up conversations for Missing Persons Week.

Loren maintains relationships with 50 families of long-term missing persons. They say she is "fierce", "generous" and unlike others, she understands what they are going through.

Coffee cups that tell the stories of missing persons hope to humanise them in the public's mind. ( ABC News: Geoff Kemp )

'Everything changed that day'

When Dan went missing, Loren remembers receiving little guidance from Geelong police.

"They said, 'do whatever you feel you need to do.'"

She did, but it wasn't easy. The family learnt a lot of lessons the hard way, including forgetting to put a contact number on a poster of Dan.

"The public just assumes that when someone is registered as missing that the police are there doing absolutely everything you see on the movies and on TV with helicopters and dogs and that's very rarely the case," Loren says.

So, she gave up her stable government communications role to run a campaign called Dan Come Home and turned their Geelong family home into a media hub.

The social media campaign not only attracted celebrities including the Kardashians and Sia, but other families searching for their missing loved ones.

Rachael reached out to Loren through her campaign Facebook page to ask for help. ( ABC News: Stephanie Boltje )

Missing: Donny Govan

Donny Govan would be 21 now. He ran away from a campsite in Echuca, Victoria, when he was 16 and hasn't been seen since.

"That's the worst bit, the not knowing, because it leaves you stuck in limbo," says his sister Rachael O'Keane.

"We can't grieve because we don't know if he's alive or dead and we can't move on."

Loren says this is known as "ambiguous loss".

Rachael gives Loren a big hug as they meet in front of a mural of Donny in Fitzroy.

The giant, modern-day missing persons posters, as Rachael describes them, have been painted in Hobart, Perth, Sydney and Victoria, and soon Canberra, by well-known street artists and authors donating their time and talent.

Loren organises the logistics.

"In the early stages we got in contact with Loren and basically asked her for help because we didn’t know what to do," says Rachael, who reached out to Loren through the Dan Come Home Facebook page.

"I feel like she's always available and it's not an issue to contact her and ask for help."

Loren and Rachael beside the mural of Rachael's brother Donny Govan. ( ABC News: Geoff Kemp )

One woman can make a big difference

Loren had been unpaid for 18 months when she heard about Vodafone's World of Difference grant in 2013. She had to form a charity to apply.

"I thought, "You know what? There should be a charity in Australia that's doing this kind of work."

And so the Missing Persons Advocacy Network (MPAN) was born.

Loren had collated a range of contacts that would help families of missing persons, so she created Australia's first Missing Persons Guide.

The idea evolved, and now her website includes a checklist of what to do in the days, weeks and months after someone goes missing.

She relies on donations, pro-bono support, free office space, and a handful of casual volunteers, including her wife as the creative director. She pays her personal bills by hosting Airbnb guests.

Loren says advocating for families of missing persons is her "passion and purpose". ( ABC News: Geoff Kemp )

"People think we are this big organisation and I get emails asking to be directed to the marketing manager."

"It's me. It's just me," she laughs.

Loren works around the clock answering calls, connecting families with services and media opportunities, creating and arranging awareness campaigns, as well as maintaining the social media platforms and website.

Tej Chitnis is featured in The Un-Missables street art campaign to humanise missing persons. ( ABC News: Iskhandar Razak )

Missing: Tej Chitnis

More than two years after Tej Chitnis was last seen driving in the Healesville area, Victoria, his mother Reva is still finding memories of him scattered through their family home in Burwood East.

"I was cleaning the house yesterday and underneath the sofa I found one of his T-shirts," she says.

"It still smells of him."

His room is the same as he left it — the Kobe Bryant poster above his desk, his cologne bottle still sitting in its packaging and his navy hockey ribbons proudly presented near his bunk bed.

"There are endless questions. There are more questions than answers," says Tej's father Jayant.

Reva and Jayant had lots of help to hang posters of Tej but many families in similar predicaments don't. ( ABC News: Geoff Kemp )

Tej never arrived for a dinner for his father's 60th birthday and his older brother's farewell.

The family would later learn Tej hadn't been attending university for nearly two years.

In the early weeks, Tej's friends and family would spend days putting up thousands of posters in Healesville. But Jayant says many don't have that kind of support.

As the weeks turned to months, to a year, Reva was questioning how much energy she should keep putting into the Find Tej Chitnis Facebook group.

Then she received a message from Loren asking if they needed any help: "I replied 'Yes. Yes, we do need help!'"

Since then, Loren has featured Tej on a billboard in Healesville, in lights during an AFL match at the MCG and on a mural at the Queen Victoria market.

"Loren is just amazing. She includes us in everything and makes sure that Tej is mentioned," says Reva.

Tej's father, Jayant, adds: "For the police it's just another number. Loren gets very personal — she's interested in getting to know the family and a lot of the time it is not the immediate family."

Jayant and Reva hope their missing son Tej will get in contact just to let them know he's okay. ( ABC News: Geoff Kemp )

Dan's legacy

Loren doesn't want other family members to give up their jobs to search for loved ones and hopes the guide, the checklist and the charity give them direction and hope.

"I was just a sister with a crazy idea," Loren says.

"And I am 100 per cent committed to this. This is my purpose and my passion. That's why I allow it to be my 24/7."

Tragically, Dan's body was found four-and-a-half years after he was last seen.

"Some people have told me they thought I would stop MPAN after Dan was found.

"But, I hate waste. It would be so silly to have done so much work trying to improve these systems to stop it — I feel like this is Dan's legacy."

Missing Persons Week runs from August 5-11 — find out more from the Missing Persons Advocacy Network.

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