I stopped at my Mom’s this morning.  As usual she had a lot of suitcases for me; I left with over a dozen of them.  Ever since she heard about this organization, Suitcases 4 Kids, she has made it one of her missions to collect as many as she can find.  I pick up 4 or 5 whenever I stop in.  Today was the mother lode!

Why does she have so much interest?  The organization’s goal is to supply suitcases for the 510,000 children that are in the foster care system in the United States.  These are the kids who are constantly on the move from hospital, to foster home, to group home, and hopefully to a family that keeps them.  And they move with all of their belongings stuffed into garbage bags. This is their life.  Suitcases help to boost their self esteem; they are not throw away kids!

Mom finds it amazing that there are so many children like this; and this number doesn’t include those that are homeless.  In her day these kids would have been absorbed into their families  She herself had several cousins that grew up with her when their parents could not take care of them anymore.  As a result I also had cousins living with us when I was growing up.

There was a time when families could do this.  Hillary Clinton once said that “it takes a village to raise a child”.  In those days  people could take care of their own.  Grandparents, parents, and children lived in the same home.  Uncles, aunts, and cousins lived next door and down the street.  Today no one lives close.  I have two friends that live in Massachusetts but each has family in California; a lot of my wife’s relatives are in Canada.

So where do these children go?  To state facilities; as more and more families break apart more buildings spring up to take care of them.  Just today Mom was telling me that her town is trying to build a small mental hospital just a couple of doors from her house.  The neighbors are up in arms about this and they are trying to fight it.  So again, where will these kids go?

The interesting thing is that this hospital will replace several Section 8 houses that no one even knew were there until now.  These are government-sponsored affordable homes for low-income families and individuals.  The neighbors are using horror stories that they’ve heard about these homes to try to stifle the hospital.  They are fighting to keep these places even though they hate what they’ve heard.  As I said to my mother, “they want to keep the devil they know rather than the devil they don’t.”  I don’t know who originally said this but it really fits here.  But don’t get me wrong I am not saying I believe the hospital is bad; the neighbors are afraid their property values will go down.  Apparently this is more important than our kids!

On a side note, Eunice Kennedy Shriver just died.  Today the Kennedys are having a public wake on Cape Cod today.  No matter what people’s personal or political thoughts are about them no one can deny that the Kennedys have done a lot for the disabled, homeless, and other disadvantaged people.  For example, Eunice started Special Olympics in her back yard.  Maria Shriver, besides being the First Lady of California works with Alzheimer’s.  Caroline Kennedy works with the homeless.  Ted Kennedy has sponsored many bills to help the disabled.

And now we have this small foundation, Suitcases 4 Kids who is looking to help foster care children as much as possible.  They would like new or lightly used suitcases, backpacks, and duffel bags.  Every day in her travels my Mom keeps looking.

If you have any please don’t hesitate to help these kids out.  The website gives locations where to send them.  Mom has it easy, she finds them and loads them into my car, and then lets me worry about how to get them to the foundation.