MONROE — Little Nevaeh Buchanan hasn’t been forgotten. Not around the North Macomb Street neighborhood where she disappeared, not around Monroe, and most certainly not by her family.

Tuesday is the second anniversary of the day that the 5-year-old girl disappeared from the Charlotte Arms, where she lived with her mother, Jennifer Buchanan, and her grandmother, Sherry Buchanan.

The crime mobilized the community as hundreds of volunteers searched ditches, fields, and ponds and put Nevaeh and her family in a national spotlight.

Hopes that the brown-eyed girl would be found alive melted to despair on June 4, 2009, when fishermen found her body encased in concrete along the banks of the River Raisin.

Investigators have received more than 13,000 tips. Two men described as “persons of interest” were arrested and sent back to prison on unrelated crimes.

Yet there have been no arrests. The FBI and Monroe County Sheriff’s Office have been tight-lipped about what they may have uncovered while combing through tips and developing leads.

The lack of information has been frustrating for Jennifer and Sherry Buchanan, who was the child’s legal guardian.

They both long for answers as to who killed her, and more important, why someone would commit such a heinous crime. The women cling to hope that justice will be served.

“I don’t know anything more than what everybody else knows. That makes it really hard,” Sherry Buchanan said.

Sheriff Tilman Crutchfield said detectives with his department are still aggressively working the case.

“Some progress has been made in the investigation during the past two years. Those details, however, cannot be revealed at this time,” the sheriff said.

Still, Jennifer Buchanan, 26, said she desperately wants authorities to share the progress they have made in the investigation.

“They just don’t tell us anything. They just tell us they have information, but they don’t want to tell what they do have. It has been like that since day one. It has been very frustrating,” she said.

From the tragedy emerged Justice for Nevaeh, a group intent on finding the killer or killers while promoting practices and programs designed to keep children safe.

The non-profit group has printed and distributed thousands of reward posters, given away toys to boys and girls during the holidays, sponsored Easter egg hunts, begun a scholarship program at Nevaeh’s school, and dedicated trees and benches in her honor.

Much of the group’s focus has centered in the neighborhood near the apartment complex that Nevaeh called home for several years. A chain-link fence separates a play area at the apartment from a Monroe Public Schools elementary building where she attended preschool.

The nearby Moose Lodge on North Macomb has hosted many poster distribution events, safety and child identification programs, as well as holiday parties and fund-raisers organized by Justice For Nevaeh.

“There are a lot of kids still living in the apartments who have been affected by this crime. They knew her. Some of them played with her,” said co-founder and child advocate Risa Thompson about why so many events and activities have been held at the Moose Lodge.

Respecting the family’s wishes, the group will not do anything to mark the anniversary.

“We have an agreement with the family that we won’t do anything on the actual day of her disappearance,” Ms. Thompson said.

However, a ceremony in Nevaeh’s honor will be held Saturday to dedicate a flowering apple tree at Riverside Early Learning Center on North Roessler Street. The school now houses the Discovery Preschool program that Nevaeh attended. The group placed a bench on the playground at the school last June in remembrance of Nevaeh.

“I am grateful that Justice for Neveah is working to keep her name out there,” Jennifer Buchanan said.

“Hopefully it will bring the people who are responsible to justice. I can’t wait for that day to happen. I hope it happens very soon.”

The group hopes to break ground this week on a children’s play area behind the Moose Lodge where members once pitched horseshoes.

Justice for Nevaeh is paying for durable plastic equipment, including swings, a glider, climbing area, slides, and a sandbox. A dedication ceremony also is planned for Saturday.

Ms. Thompson, who is a distant cousin of the victim, said benches at the school and one that will be placed at a playground at the Moose Lodge are intended to provide places for parents and grandparents to sit while they watch their children play.

“Hopefully children will be supervised by the parents, who are ultimately responsible for where their children are,” she said.

Jennifer Buchanan said she plans to spend time Tuesday at her daughter’s grave in St. Joseph Cemetery.

“I try to visit as often as I can,” she said. “I try to get there two to three times a week.”

The Catholic cemetery’s manager, Jim DuBay, said someone drives into the cemetery in search of her grave on most days. People who never knew the girl still leave stuffed animals, loose change, and other mementoes on the granite monument to show they care.

“It make me feel good because it shows that she has not been forgotten,” her mother said. “She definitely hasn’t been forgotten.”

Sherry Buchanan said that the emotional and psychological wounds caused by the kidnapping and murder have yet to heal, and that small things, like seeing geese — which Nevaeh insisted on calling ducks — or a little girl with long brown hair like her granddaughter’s, stir up painful memories.

“She is on my mind every day. I wish she was here with me. I miss doing the things I did with her,” she said.

The reward for information leading to an arrest in the case now stands at $50,000, with $27,500 of the fund being offered by Justice for Nevaeh.

Law enforcement has kicked in $20,000 and $2,500 was added by Crime Stoppers of Michigan.

The two men labeled “persons of interest” — George Kennedy and Roy Lee Smith — remain locked up in Michigan prisons on parole violations.

Kennedy, 41, a convicted sex offender who had been in a relationship with Nevaeh’s mother, is scheduled to be released next May. He could go before the parole board at year’s end.

Smith, 50, also a convicted sex offender and an acquaintance of Jennifer Buchanan, is to be released in November, 2012. He will not be reviewed for parole until some time next year.

Nevaeh’s paternal grandmother, Carla Nash, said she has nothing but praise for the efforts of Justice for Nevaeh in keeping Nevaeh in the public eye. She too yearns for law enforcement to make an arrest.

“I just want closure. I want to know who and I want to know why,” she said.

Contact Mark Reiter at: markreiter@theblade.com or 419-724-6199.

First Published May 24, 2011, 1:49 a.m.