Rob Scheer is fine using trash bags for trash. He is not okay with foster children using them to hold their few possessions.
"We have over 428,000 children in the U.S. in foster care, we should never give a child a trash bag," he said.
Scheer knows what it feels like to put all of your belongings in a trash bag. He had to as a child.
"My parents died at a very young age. I went to live at a neighbor's home, carried a trash bag up her driveway," he said. "I remember it as if it were yesterday."
Despite losing his parents and being homeless his senior year of high school, Scheer overcame the odds and found success and love.
When he and his husband adopted four children nine years ago, they were shocked when the kids arrived at their home.
"All four of them had trash bags. I remember saying to the social worker 'Have we really not done anything about this?'"
Scheer says many children who enter the foster care system are given trash bags to hold their possessions, if they have any. He wants to get rid of trash bags and replace them with much sturdier bags.
He started Comfort Cases four years ago, delivering foster children a backpack or duffel bag filled with items like hygiene products, stuffed animals and blankets.
"I think that if we start just with the basics of our system changing that we will already see a ripple effect," he said.
Scheer's overall mission is to change the foster care system and how kids feel about being placed in foster homes.
"One thing they will all tell you is that they feel they're invisible kids, they feel they're disposable," he said. "They're not disposable."
On Friday December 1, the Royal Sonesta Harbor Court and ZBest Worldwide are hosting a "Pack a Trolley" event outside of the hotel on Light Street. From 7:30a to 6p, you can drop off donations to benefit Comfort Cases.
In four years, Comfort Cases has donated more than 30,000 bags to kids in 31 states. But with more than 400,000 children in foster care across the country, Scheer knows his work is not over.
"We have got to get these kids and let them know that they deserve everything that I would give my own children," he said.
Click here for a list of items Comfort Cases for their bags.
