St John’s sends Bags of Hope to foster children in Connecticut
One of the volunteers, Jon Cook, with some of 72 bags sponsored by St John’s
Bags of Hope, Connecticut formed in 2018, and this year is sending 1,165 bags to foster children in the state. The idea for the monogrammed bags came a few years earlier from foster parents in Massachusetts, Kim and John Gagne, when their foster child arrived with his belongings in a trash bag.
A bag of their own: personalized duffels to replace trash bags
There are some four thousand children in foster care in Connecticut at any one time. They spend an average of two and a half years with foster parents, and one in seven is in foster care for more than five years. During that time they often move repeatedly, around a quarter of them four times or more. Often their belongings go with them in plastic bags or similarly makeshift containers.
Duffel bags at the Lighthouse Church in Plainfield awaiting despatch to sponsor churches (photo at: https://www.bagsofhopect.org/photo-gallery)
Bags of Hope New England packed five thousand duffel bags this year, and the Connecticut branch of the organization aims to provide one to every foster child in the state. To personalize the brightly-colored bags, they are inscribed with the monogram of the child receiving them.
Items inside the bags vary from year to year, but each contains a fleece blanket or quilt, and every child under ten receives a Squishmallow – a small stuffed toy often in the form of a bird or animal – with his or her name on it. This year a handmade wooden ornament bearing the child’s name was also included in his or her bag.
Funding comes from churches such as St John’s who sponsor bags for $25, and donors are eagerly sought. With the bags and contents being bought at reduced prices, and the monogramming donated by a sporting goods store in Rhode Island, each filled bag costs between $35 and $40. A team of 35 volunteers helps to run the project. More information is available at bagsofhopect.org.
A bag sponsored by St John’s and bearing our label
Apart from providing the personalized bags, Bags of Hope aims to raise awareness of the need for fostering and adoption, including in Connecticut. Donors are asked not just for money but also to pray for the child whose bag they have sponsored during the following year.
