"No more trash bags for children in foster care"

Father-of-five, Rob Scheer, reveals why he still carries a trash bag with him everywhere he goes - as a reminder of the thing he can never forget, and the thing he is determined to end.

I literally lived on the streets my entire senior year of high school,” Rob Scheer shares matter-of-factly, pausing a beat to let that fact sink in.

“I was one of tens of thousands of kids each year who age out of the foster care system in the US, and became homeless just after my 18th birthday.

“Each morning I would hide my trash bag, which contained everything I owned in the world, behind some nearby bushes and go to school, hoping the other kids wouldn’t notice the holes in my shoes, or make fun of the fact I smelled, and clearly hadn’t brushed my teeth in weeks.”

After being removed from an abusive household, Rob - the youngest of ten children - grew up in the care system in Virginia.

Rob (right) and Reece with their five children

“In this country, the statistics of children from foster care even graduating from high school are horrific, just 54%,

“And 80% of our prison inmates have either been in foster care, or been touched by foster care.

“By the time I turned 18, my brothers and sisters had already started falling to the wayside - addiction, suicide, teenage pregnancy - and it scared me. I was determined to make something better for myself.” Rob graduated high school, and joined the US Navy: “Not because of my pride in my country,” he explains, “but because I was hungry and scared.

“MY FIRST NIGHT THERE I LAY DOWN ON MY BED AND CRIED WITH RELIEF; RELIEF THAT I HAD A BED, AND A HOT MEAL COMING THAT NIGHT.”

Rob worked hard and built a good life for himself. He became a successful businessman, met and married his husband Reece, and together they adopted five incredible children.

“I poured myself into making sure my children had the best lives, and for a while that was enough,” he recalls.

“But then, one day in 2013, I realised there was still more that I wanted to do. I was sitting in my office talking to my husband and I pulled out a trash bag that I keep in my desk - a trash bag I keep with me at all times, I never want to forget where I came from.

“I told my husband I wanted to eliminate trash bags in foster care. He, of course, thought I was crazy, but I was determined.

“I gathered some of my senior team, members of our community, and people from our church, and I told them my story; the story of a 12-year-old boy who walked up the driveway of his first foster home carrying a trash bag, a trash bag that tried to define me, to tell me nobody cared, a trash bag that we continue to give out to children in foster care every day.

“I TALKED ABOUT EACH OF MY KIDS ARRIVING AT OUR HOME WITH THEIR BELONGINGS IN A TRASH BAG, BUT WITHOUT SO MUCH AS TOOTHBRUSH.”

“I told them about my first night in foster care, when I was forced to use the same bar of soap that everyone else in the house had used ahead of me, without even knowing some of their names. It was about dignity.”

Rob and his team set up Comfort Cases in a bid to change the narrative for children coming into the foster care system. They created cases that contained toothbrushes, soap, and PJs. Each case had a journal, pencils, a book, a stuffed animal, and a blanket.

“I was 20 before I owned my first book,” Rob says.

“I wanted every child, whether newborn or 19-years-old, to have a book, a stuffed animal, and a blanket to wrap themselves up in.”

Nine years on, Comfort Cases has delivered over 150,000 cases to every single state in the US, and to Puerto Rico. More recently Comfort Cases expanded to the UK, where it continues to supply cases for free to social workers, who can order them by visiting the ComfortCasesUK website.

Rob, now in his fifties, says: “I believe each of us has a moral obligation to ensure we leave children’s lives better than we found them, because they didn’t ask to be put into foster care.

“Comfort Cases has done incredible work, but there’s still so much more to do. My goal is that one day soon every politician will stand with me and say ‘no more trash bags for children in foster care.’

“That’s the day I’m working towards.”