Making a Difference: Hope in a Bag

Child Protective Services (CPS) doesn't remove children from their homes unless they feel that the children have been neglected or abused. Michelle Chesher, the assistant program manager at the CPS location in Mesa, Arizona, explains, "Child abuse ranges from physical to sexual to emotional. Sometimes the parents can't provide a suitable home for their children. About ninety percent of these children have had drugs in their homes."

When CPS comes to remove a child from these situations, the worker gives each child a plastic garbage bag or a pillow case to pack his or her clothes, toys, and other belongings in ten to fifteen minutes. "Often the parents are angry, and the children are scared and confused," says Chesher. "When they move to a foster home or to a relative's home, the children - especially the older children - can be embarrassed by carrying their possessions in a garbage bag."

So in Mesa, Arizona, Todd Kupfer, a seventeen-year-old in the Mesa East Eighteenth Ward, decided to do something about it. He recognized in a newspaper ad the need for bags and saw an opportunity for a meaningful Eagle Project. "I wanted to help. These kids have already been through traumatizing experiences like abuse. When they are given trash bags, their stuff is being treated like garbage," he says.

At his Eagle Project activity, Kupfer, his friends, and his ward members cut and sewed donated material, strung string through the sewed fabric, and wrote notes to the children. Ward member Margie Owens says, "We had a good time together, and we knew we were doing something good for these kids."

Debra Whipple, another ward member, shares, "It was a really sweet but hard experience to come up with things to say that would be comforting to them at that time." Merrilee Kupfer, Todd's mother, adds, "We just want these kids to know that they are loved."

"I hope to help the kids realize that someone cares about them and that their bag was specifically made just for them," says Todd, who exceeded his goal of making 100 bags by making 136.

Chesher affirms the hope behind the donations. "These bags will give them a sense of pride and self-esteem. They won't have to be embarrassed about what they carry their stuff in anymore," she says.

The CPS location in Arizona has received bags from different groups and projects similar to Todd's, such as elderly groups knitting bags. Each state's needs are different, so if you would like to help, contact your state's CPS location to see what supplies or resources are needed.