Sixteen years ago, Rob Scheer and his husband Reese showed up to pick up two foster kids they wanted to adopt, and one of the first things they noticed was what the children had with them.
“Sitting next to them, both had a trash bag,” Scheer said.
The sight hit home for Scheer, who himself had been in foster care, and recalled the trash bag he used to have that contained all his belongings.
“I was just shocked that after all these years, you know, that we say we care so much about our kids in society, that we were still giving kids in foster care a trash bag,” Scheer said.
Scheer was taken from his parents due to abuse and found himself going from home to home. When he was 18, his foster parents handed him a trash bag with his stuff and he became homeless.
“I’m not saying that all foster parents are bad,” Scheer said. “I just didn’t have the best experience, and it really did give me trauma, and then to be homeless and to deal with that, but I had made a determination to myself that no matter what you put in front of me, I was going to overcome it.”
He became a banker in Northern Virginia and was content in his big house, driving his expensive car; but that changed when he adopted his first two children and saw their trash bags.
So Scheer and his husband started Comfort Cases, which provides foster children with backpacks and duffel bags with the necessities. The children get the items inside and the bag itself to carry their belongings.
“We have sent cases to all 50 states, D.C., Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom,” Scheer said, pointing at a map with countless pins indicating where cases have been sent.
Scheer said the charity has sent out hundreds of thousands of cases to social workers, who give them to children they are working with.
Inside each bag are items such as toothbrushes, shampoo and soap, things Scheer said he did not have during his time in foster care. He recalled going into a house full of strangers and being told to take a shower, and in that shower was only a used bar of soap.
“I remember that bar of soap as a little boy,” he said. “I remember being put in that bathroom, and I had to use that bar of soap.”
The bag also includes a blanket, as well as coloring books for younger children. He added pajamas after his children told him the pajamas Scheer bought them were the first pair they’ve had.
“It’s not acceptable that kids come in the system because of a choice that someone else made, and we can’t even give them a brand-new pair of pajamas,” Scheer said.
‘What we are doing is making a difference’
He said Comfort Cases started with the focus of eliminating the trash bags for foster kids in the D.C. area, but after appearing on the Ellen show, he said the mission quickly expanded to the entire country, and even to the United Kingdom.
“I know for a fact that what we are doing is making a difference for kids in foster care, and we will continue to do this as long as children are entering the system and handed a trash bag and not handed the necessities that each and every one of them deserve to have,” he said.
The organization, based in Gaithersburg, Maryland, is also behind legislative change in its home state, where it recently became law that foster children should be given luggage, not trash bags, to carry their belongings.
Scheer said for 28 years he had a job as a banker. Now, leading the organization, Scheer said he has a purpose. He is also proud of how the organization raises the money it needs to buy the new goods for the bags.
“We are a $6 million organization that is funded by the biggest corporation in the world, and that is our human race, and our average donor is $8 a month,” he said.
The charity always needs help packing bags at its location on Gaither Road in Rockville, Maryland, Scheer said, as requests for the bags continue to come in.
He said while many bigger issues with the foster system remain and need to be addressed, the organization is doing what it can to make sure foster kids know there are people out there, rooting for them.
“I want every child in foster care to know that they are loved by someone,” Scheer said.
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