Over 100 children of St. Lawrence County in foster care will soon have their own Comfort Cases, containing toiletries, books, and pajamas that they can call their own.
Rob Scheer founded the Comfort Cases organization with his own experience with foster care in mind. Scheer’s mission is to make sure that no foster child enters a home with all of their belongings in a trash bag: Enter, the Comfort Case.
Ashlee Downing, the associate director of student activities and leadership and the coordinator of volunteer services at St. Lawrence University, was introduced to the Comfort Cases organization at a conference called Impact, which brings together people who work for non-profits or work in community service on college and high school campuses.
Scheer was a keynote speaker at this conference, where he told his personal story and talked about the work Comfort Cases is doing to change lives. Scheer’s speech inspired Downing to reach out to him after returning to SLU and bring this cause to the North Country.
A Comfort Case is a backpack containing shampoo, toothpaste, a book, pajamas, a blanket, stuffed animals, and many other belongings that a child needs to feel safe. Downing says that Comfort Cases give foster children something that they can have control over as well as a sense of stability.
“I think that sometimes kids in foster care don’t want to be an inconvenience to their new foster parents, and while that is by no means true — people that are in foster care are doing it because they care– this helps [the children] feel like they are relieving some of the burden,” Downing said.
These donations will be going to children in the North Country who do not have many things to call their own. According to Heather Wetzel at the St. Lawrence County Department of Social Services, there are currently 190 youths in the foster system, and 82 children have been placed with other relatives. “We try to the best of our ability to place children with relatives before going into foster care,” she says.
Downing’s goal is to produce 150 complete backpacks for the children in the area. “There’s lots of kids in this area that are in need, and if we as a university can make 150 kids have a better experience, then why would we not?” she asks.
Downing is specifically looking for donations for children who are age 10 and older, because their needs are different than those of younger kids.
Downing says that often when people donate, they want to buy cute baby clothes, “but there are kids who are 14 and for the first time going into foster care, and we forget about those kids sometimes.” She also says that it might be even more difficult for older children to adjust, especially if they are going into the foster care system at 10 years old, because they are aware of what is going on.
Downing is currently in the process of becoming a foster parent and has a personal connection to this organization. “At the end of the day, I can’t fix someone’s situation, but I can make it a little easier,” Downing says.