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Dear Friends:
When I first started at Child and Family Services nearly 25 years ago, my predecessor, Marketing Director Liz Rockershousen, told me about the fundraiser she had pioneered called the Littlest Bag People—a reference to the fact that children often came into foster care with their belongings in a brown paper or plastic grocery bag. That’s what our Brown Bag Campaign was called in its earliest days.
While the name has changed, the rationale behind it has not. Children still enter foster care after an investigation reveals that they are not safe at home due to abuse or neglect. These days, children’s placement in foster care is often due to parents’ substance use, untreated mental illness, or both. These are significant societal challenges that plague even our small community. Fortunately, there are caring, compassionate professionals—many at CFS—working hard to make home a safe place for all children.
Now in its 36th year, our Brown Bag Campaign is a testament to Liz’s vision: to offer visitors a meaningful way to give back to the community they enjoy, and to remind locals that CFS is here every day, caring for our community’s children.
Since inception, the Brown Bag Campaign has raised more than $656,000 for the needs of children in foster care, including fees and equipment to play sports at school, perhaps to rent a musical instrument, to attend summer camp, to explore any of their aptitudes and interests to be all they wish to be despite the things that have happened to them. All these years later, Liz comes to my mind when it’s once again time for the Brown Bag Campaign. I so appreciate her still for her insight and for her great idea that has had such a long-lasting impact.
Please scroll down for more about this year’s Campaign, and about other things happening at CFS worthy of your continued support. We simply couldn’t do all we do for children and families without you.
Wishing you a warm, wonderful, fun-filled summer!
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