SAN DIEGO -- More than 24 hours after the "Friends of Jahi Recovery Centre" officially opened for business, not one member of the more than 100-person volunteer team had set foot on San Diego's streets to look for 2-year-old Jahi Turner, 10News reported Thursday.

The splinter search group was formed by Jahi's grandmother, Penny Thompson, in response to an announcement Monday by organizers of the original search group that they had exhausted their efforts.

MISSING JAHI TURNER Light-skinned African-American 30 pounds, 30 inches tall Black hair Wearing blue "Winnie the Pooh" T-shirt, blue pants, and gray tennis shoes INFORMATION SDPD Juvenile Hotline: (619) 744-9521 Tip Hotline: (619) 235-8477 Download A Missing Flyer SOUND OFF Share Your Thoughts

That group, "The Jahi Search Center" --based out of the Golden Hill Moose Lodge since April 28 -- said its more than 1,000 volunteers had scoured a nearly 20-square-mile area and passed out some 30,000 fliers before deciding to scale back efforts, 10News reported.

Thompson's search effort is based out of the Jackie Robinson YMCA in Mountain View. Several volunteers turned up at the center around 8:45 a.m. Thursday in preparation to be sent out at 9 a.m., but the search was delayed until 11 a.m.

As midday came and went, people stared at maps, pointed, spoke animatedly, but still no one in the group had been able to organize well enough to search for the toddler who was reported missing from Balboa Park April 25.

The group was not suffering from a lack of volunteers, 10News reported. Later in the afternoon, 20 Marines were expected to join the search. Members of the Guardian Angels are already part of the search.

Regardless, when the search finally gets under way, Thompson said that she is confident Jahi will be found.

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Searchers Appear To Have No Plan Of Action Thompson Happy With Effort

"He's alive, God's with him, until I see anything different -- then I will speak on that," Thompson (pictured, right) told 10News. "But right now, he's alive. And he's waiting for Grandma and Momma to come get him."

Volunteers' spirits are also high. Sunshine Peralta is a grandmother who has joined the search, and told 10News that she can empathize with Thompson.

"If one of my grandkids was missing, I would turn the world upside-down," Peralta said.

Police said Jahi's stepfather, Tieray Jones, 23, left the child in a Balboa Park recreation area with a woman and two other children while he walked a few hundred yards to buy a vending-machine soda.

When he returned, his stepson was gone, along with the others, the man reported.

Jahi's disappearance, which investigators soon described as an abduction, prompted an all-out law enforcement probe and volunteer searches reminisent of those carried out for 7-year-old Danielle van Dam in February.

Police have declined to address news reports that Jahi apparently was not where his stepfather said he was the day he went missing, or that Jones failed a lie detector test.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that police did not find the boy's fingerprints on recreation equipment in the playground off 28th and Beech streets, where Jones said they had been that Thursday.

The child's mother, Tameka Jones, 18, is a sailor who was at sea when her son disappeared. Her Navy commanders allowed her to immediately return to shore to help in the search.

Jahi is 2 1/2 feet tall, light-skinned African American who weighs about 30 pounds.

At the time of his disappearance, he was wearing a blue "Winnie the Pooh" long-sleeve T- shirt, blue nylon pants with an orange drawstring and gray Michael Jordan tennis shoes, according to his stepfather.

Police urged anyone with information concerning Jahi's whereabouts to call the SDPD's Central Division "juvenile hotline" at (619) 744-9521, or San Diego County Crime Stoppers' anonymous tip service at (619) 235-8477.