TFG Charity of the Month

PERSONAL EFFECTS
MY STUFF BAGS FOUNDATION DELIVERS COMFORT
AND HOPE TO NEGLECTED CHILDREN NATIONWIDE

Letters from people who have been helped by My Stuff Bags

This is to all the people that make the My Stuff Bag program a success. I am a single foster parent that
has been deeply enriched by your kindness. I recently kept a 10-year boy that received one of your gifts
and was able to get one for his 13-year old sister who lived in a different foster home. These two children
are part of a sibling group of six, all of which have been placed in foster care due to parents that are substance dependent and way below the mark on anything that resembles a parenting skill. When taken into care they were living with their mother in an unsecured mobile home, unfit to raise a hog in, that had no water or electricity. The children were unfed, filthy and living more like wild animals in the woods. The two children that I am speaking of are very bright and loving and entered my life without anything they could remotely call their own. The little things that we consider as ordinary, such as shoes, clothes, a jacket or something as great as a toy, is almost beyond what they can comprehend. To give them a gift such as yours that has things in the bags like a blanket, toothpaste, shampoo, books, clothing and a host of small items is better than Christmas to these children. Your gift of love is special to children like these because it is unexpected and without strings attached, a pure act of kindness and generosity. I know as these children grow into adults they will never forget what you have done for them. I too was raised in foster care and I still have the first Christmas present that I can remember as a child. It was a fire hydrant coin bank that probably cost twenty-five cents at the time and given to me by a church at Harrison, Arkansas, and as I pass it daily in my home I consider it one of my most prized possessions, even after 33 years. Please don’t ever doubt that the work you do to help children goes unnoticed or unappreciated. May God bless everyone that has a hand in this wonderful program.

An e-mail from John Sutton, a foster parent

I would like to take this opportunity to offer my sincere gratitude. Your foundation recently extended us the opportunity to participate in your committed program to help abused and neglected children. We received numerous “My Stuff” bags to disseminate to the children that we provide services to in the foster care system.

It is difficult for people not working with children in the foster care system to ascertain the importance of the “My Stuff” bags. Children in foster care have been subject to sub-standard living conditions, physical and sexual abuse, and/or parents addicted to drugs or substances that were emotionally or physically unavailable to them. They are removed abruptly from their home environments by authorities to be placed in an alternate foreign environment that is deemed to be safe. Separated from their possessions, their families, their siblings, and their familiar routine, we do our best to convey to these children that they are safe once these actions have been committed against them. Even so, they have little reason to believe us when we tell them so, based on their previous life expe4iences.

“My Stuff” bags are presented to these children as something they may keep in their possession when they have little else to call their own. A handmade blanket, a book, crayons, and a stuffed animals are all items that a child can seek solace in. Once these children are given these items, they are theirs to keep in their possession. Even if they are displaced from shelter care to foster care, or to a relative placement, there is a constant source of support and/or security for them in these bags. Similarly, they have a tote in which to carry acquired possessions that they shouldn’t have to leave behind. Permanence, safety, stability and comfort are critical to a successful foster placement. It is these things we strive for in our daily exchanges with the foster population. The “My Stuff” bags help to demonstrate this to our children in a tangible way.

Thank you for the individual time and attention that you and your volunteers put into creating each and every one of these bags. Thank you also for opening your hearts to children in need.

Respectfully,

Kristina Hermanson
Temecula Office Director
Trinity Foster Care
Temecula, CA

Once again paged to respond to the police station, I was told there was a 10 year old boy awaiting decision as to where he would be placed.

He was living with his mother and her boyfriend, seemingly barely noticed most of the time. Mom and boyfriend began fighting and as the violence escalated he tried to help his Mom. He was yelled at to go into his room and stay there. Not long after he heard gunshots. Afraid of the consequences if he came out of his room, he just stayed there and cried, not knowing what had happened.

The police arrived, covered his dead mother and arrested her boyfriend. They then found the boy in his room, frightened and bewildered. He was taken out of the house without seeing his mother or her boyfriend and brought to the police station.

When I arrived, the boy told me he thought his mom was “shot in the leg, and taken to a hospital to get it fixed”. I learned the boy’s father was on his way, but he, too, was not told what had occurred.

The boy’s home was now a crime scene. He would not be allowed back in for some time. He left with the clothes on his back. When “Dad” arrived and was told what happened, he made it clear the boy would not be coming home with him, he had a life.

Of course it was awful – deep, grown-up pain for a child always is. It was determined the boy would go to a relative’s house he barely knew for the time being. When he and I had some quiet time, I gave him the “My Stuff” bag. He began going through it very timidly. “Is it okay if I look at the baseball cards?” he asked. I told him all of it was for him. He looked up at me, face still wet from tears and said “but you don’t even know me!” As I choked on my words, I told him that everything in the bag was for him, made especially for him, from people who cared about him! He dropped the bag, covered his face, wept openly and said “but they don’t even know me, either!” I got to tell him he was loved, even by people he hadn’t met.

He had a clean shirt in the “My Stuff” bag to wear to school the next day. He had school supplies to use, toiletries, a journal to write in, much more, and the highlight to him was the baseball cards! I told him that each time he looked at the bag or anything inside, to remember he wasn’t alone, that people loved and cared for him. The relative eventually came to pick him up, and I watched him walk away carrying the “My Stuff” bag in one had and the baseball cards in the other.

Terry Parsons
Crisis Response Team
West Valley

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