MAITLAND, Fla. – Dozens of backpacks filled with hygiene products and new pajamas will be donated to foster kids in the Orlando area.
A group of volunteers from Closet Factory were able to pack 250 bookbags on Tuesday.
“For you to be able to donate these backpacks, for us to be able to fill them, we are making a change,” Rob Scheer said.
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Scheer is the founder of Comfort Cases, an international nonprofit that provides free backpacks for children in the foster care system.
Scheer explained there are over 400,000 children in foster care in the U.S. and most of them were removed from their homes with little more than the clothes on their backs.
Scheer, who was a foster child himself, adopted five children and said he started this mission years ago.
“When my kids started to arrive through foster care, they all carried this. A trash bag. And I couldn’t believe how can we sit here and have this interview and talk about how we care so much about children, but we give them the one thing that we know is supposed to go in there which is garbage,” Scheer said.
According to Florida Health Charts, just in Orange County, there were over 1,000 foster children last year and 21,031 in Florida.
“The fact of the matter is we are keeping more kids from coming into the formal system but those who cannot be kept safe at home, must go into a place that is safe. So these foster homes and these foster families are the backbone of the work that we do,” Phil Scarpelli, President and CEO of Family Partnerships of Central Florida, said
All 250 backpacks will be delivered over the next few days to foster children in the Orlando area.
For more information on Comfort Cases, click here.