Cuyahoga County Sheriff deputies sit outside Ariel Castro's home in Cleveland May 10, 2013. 
 
 CLEVELAND More than $800,000 in donations has poured in from around the world to help the three women found a month ago, held captive for a decade in a Cleveland house, officials said on Thursday. 
 
 The case has resulted as well in raising awareness of the plight of missing persons, said Cleveland City Councilwoman Dona Brady. 
 
 "It takes a tragedy sometimes to make things happen," she said. "The police are taking missing persons much more seriously." 
 
 Cleveland police came under fire for not finding Gina DeJesus, Michelle Knight and Amanda Berry sooner. 
 
 On May 6, Berry, 27, was freed along with her 6-year-old daughter by neighbors from a house owned by Ariel Castro. 
 
 Berry had last been seen in 2003, and police say her child was fathered by Castro. 
 
 Cleveland police responded to Berry's 911 call and found DeJesus, 23, and Knight, 32, also in the house. Knight had disappeared in 2002 and DeJesus in 2004. 
 
 Castro, 52, is in jail on an $8 million bond and faces multiple charges of kidnapping and rape. 
 
 Brady and fellow council members Brian Cummins and Matt Zone set up the Cleveland Courage Fund, a tax-free trust for donations for the four victims. 
 
 So far, $825,000 has been collected from around the country and from various foreign countries. 
 
 The victims have started using money from the fund, said Chris Kelly, a co-trustee of the fund. 
 
 Concern also has prompted offers from doctors, dentists and people volunteering the use of vacation homes and cars, he said. 
 
 "The community is acting in a way you would hope they would act," Kelly said. 
 
 Kelly said the trust will be split equally four ways, as agreed upon by the three women. 
 
 The fund is designed to help them in all aspects of their lives, he said. 
 
 "Ten years out of society means not finishing school, no job training and not learning how to drive," he said. 
 
 There also is an attempt to get money for the victims from the state. 
 
 This week, State Rep. John Barnes Jr. of Cleveland introduced a bill that would award $25,000 a year, free medical care and state university tuition to any survivor of abduction held for eight years or more. 
 
 Cleveland police recently deployed a command bus to the city's crime-troubled east and west sides, with officers and FBI agents sent in to follow up tips and answer questions, according to spokeswoman Jennifer Ciaccia. 
 
 The house where the women were held is boarded up and surrounded by a 10-foot-high chain link fence. 
 
 Cummins, who represents the neighborhood, said residents have discussed having the house torn down and planting four oak trees for the child and three women who escaped. 
 
 (Reporting by Kim Palmer; Editing by Mary Wisniewski and Ellen Wulfhorst; Editing by Bernard Orr) ||||| CLEVELAND -- A spokesman for Amanda Berry, Michelle Knight and Gina DeJesus thanked the community and law enforcement Sunday morning, and pleaded for privacy while the women recover from years of captivity in a Cleveland home. 
 
 The women will not be speaking publicly or with reporters while criminal proceedings against their accused captor, Ariel Castro, are ongoing, said attorney Jim Wooley, of the Jones Day law firm, who read a statement on behalf of Berry, Knight, DeJesus and their families. 
 
 Wooley asked the public to give the women “time, space and privacy,” and he read three short statements attributed to them. 
 
 “Thank you so much for everything you’re doing and continue to do. I am so happy to be home with my family,” Berry is quoted as saying. 
 
 DeJesus said, “I’m so happy to be home and want to thank everybody for all your prayers. I just want time now to be with my family.” 
 
 And Knight said, “Thank you to everyone for your support and good wishes. I am healthy, happy and safe and will reach out to family, friends and supporters in good time.” 
 
 (See the entire statement in the Document Cloud below. Mobile users can read it here.) 
 
 Wooley said the women are “very grateful for the tireless efforts of numerous law enforcement officials” with the Cleveland Police Department, Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Office, FBI and the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office. The women endured years of confinement in Castro’s Seymour Avenue home, at first chained in the basement before he kept them, unchained, in locked upstairs rooms, investigators said. 
 
 Castro, a 52-year-old unemployed former school bus driver, is charged with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape and is being held on an $8 million bond. 
 
 Berry, 27, and her 6-year-old daughter, born in captivity, and DeJesus, 23, returned to their families’ homes amid cheering crowds Wednesday. Knight, 32, is staying at an undisclosed location. The women and child escaped last Monday, after Berry and two neighbors broke through a locked front door at the Seymour house. 
 
 Knight was 21 when she was reported missing Aug. 23, 2002. She was last seen at a cousin’s house at West 106th Street and Lorain Avenue. Berry was 16 when she disappeared April 21, 2003, the day before her 17th birthday. She had told her sister she was getting a ride home from her job at Burger King at West 110th Street and Lorain Avenue. DeJesus was 14 when she failed to come home from Wilbur Wright school April 2, 2004. 
 
 Wooley said that the women “will not be speaking with any representatives of the media at this time . . . [while] there is a pending criminal investigation and prosecution” and they are “witnesses and victims in that proceeding.” 
 
 And, “most importantly, Ms. Berry, Ms. DeJesus and Ms. Knight have asked — in fact, have pleaded — for privacy at this time so that they can continue to heal and reconnect with their families,” Wooley said. “Give them the time, the space and the privacy so that they can continue to get stronger.” 
 
 Wooley asked that those interested in donating money to the women do so through “legitimate entities,” such as the Cleveland Courage Fund set up by three Cleveland City Council members. Donations can be made at the Cleveland Foundation website; any KeyBank branch; or the Cleveland Foundation, 1422 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, OH 44115. 
 
 Also Sunday morning, CNN aired an excerpt from an interview with Ariel Castro’s two brothers, Pedro, 54, and Onil, 50, who were initially arrested along with Ariel but were not charged in the case. Pedro and Onil Castro told CNN reporter Martin Savidge that they knew nothing about the women being held at his brother’s home. 
 
 “The people out there that know me, they know that Onil Castro is not that person. Has nothing to do with that. Would not even think of something like that,” Onil Castro said. 
 
 “I could never even think of doing anything like that,” Pedro Castro said. “If I knew my brother was doing this, in a minute I would call the cops because that ain’t right. If I knew, I would have reported it, brother or no brother.” 
 
 CNN said it would release additional material from the interview today, including a “strange rule” that Ariel Castro insisted his brothers follow when in his house. 
 
 Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty will present the case against Ariel Castro to a grand jury, which will consider aggravated murder charges that carry the death penalty “for each act of aggravated murder he committed by terminating pregnancies” during the women’s captivity, McGinty said. 
 
 To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: djmiller@plaind.com, 216-999-4852
– A month after three women and a young girl were found captive in a Cleveland home, Reuters checks in on the victims' situation, or at least their financial state. The Cleveland Courage Fund, a tax-free trust set up in their name, has been flooded with donations and now totals $825,000. The victims have begun dipping into the money, which will be split evenly among Gina DeJesus, Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Berry's six-year-old daughter. "The outpouring of public support has been nothing short of remarkable," the victims previously said in a letter via ABC News. "The community is acting in a way you would hope they would act," the fund's co-trustee told Reuters, adding the money will help the women with whatever they need. "Ten years out of society means not finishing school, no job training, and not learning how to drive." It's not only money that's being offered up. Doctors and dentists have volunteered their services, while others have donated the use of vacation homes and cars. Meanwhile, Reuters reports neighborhood residents have talked about tearing down Ariel Castro's now boarded-up house and planting four oak trees in its place.