FINDING SOLUTIONS: Foster kids get own bags for belongings
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – 11,000 children are in foster care in the state of Georgia, placed there after a choice someone else made.
You may be surprised to know only 50% of those kids will graduate high school and 80% of death row inmates were once in foster care.
Finding solutions starts with making sure children in the foster care system know they matter.
“We didn’t start as foster parents,” said Tammy Ferguson. “We knew of a situation with two little girls who needed a home. We thought it would be a temporary situation and we could do that, and we adopted them over three years later, this past February.”
Since then, the Fergusons’ home, and their hearts, have grown. Along with daughters, Julia and Kasey, they’ve taken in other foster children, but that first meeting almost always breaks their hearts.
“We have never had a foster care child come to us with school pictures with art from their classroom, scrapbook, journal, nothing meaningful about their life. They just show up and have to work their way into your family,” she said.
And, many times, they show up with little to nothing to call their own. Many times, they bring their belongings from foster home to foster home in a trash bag.
“Old bookbags, Walmart bags, just no dignity in that. Those children deserve more than that,” said Ferguson.
Rob Scheer knows this firsthand because he grew up in foster care.
“Kids are being placed in homes with trash bags. They’re being relocated home to home with trash bags, and it’s just something we no longer can have this happen,” he said.
Scheer remembers feeling disposable as a child carrying his belongings in a trash bag to his foster home, which is why he started the non-profit Comfort Cases.
“These kids deserve something new that belongs to them,” he said. “To make sure that every single child that enters our foster care system knows that they’re loved.”
Comfort Cases provides a bookbag stuffed with a blanket, pajamas, a book, Bombas socks, and a 32-inch duffel bag to foster kids.
The health insurance company, Amerigroup, is pledging to make sure every kid in Georgia entering foster care receives one.
“This eliminates the trash bag. This truly eliminates the trash bag,” said Scheer.
So that kids in foster care can finally have the dignity they deserve.
And, you get the chance to be part of the solution.
In November, Comfort Cases and Amerigroup will be teaming up in Augusta. They need volunteers to pack bags for our local kids. They haven’t set the date or location yet.
Learn more here.