Together We Rise is a non-profit organization that improves the lives of kids in foster care. They do fundraising to purchase suitcases so no foster care kid has to move their belongings in trash bags, and they buy bikes so foster kids can know the pride of ownership. I am sponsoring a 15 day challenge to raise $1000. to purchase suitcases for foster kids.
As you know from my book, this is a reality that is near to my heart.
"That summer a new social worker showed up and instead of talking to us, he told us to gather our clothes and put them in his car. We didn't have suitcases so our clothes were folded by Dorothy (our foster mother) and put into brown paper grocery sacks. Besides our clothes, we were told to choose only three personal things to take, nothing else. The rest of our belongings were to stay with the other foster kids."
The three things I picked to take were a record and storybook combo from the Disney movie "Bedknobs and Broomsticks," a hand-me-down white vinyl purse my mother gave me that had their address printed on the inside flap, and my beloved Mrs. Beasley doll with granny glasses, a polka dotted dress and a string in her side that made her talk when I pulled it. That was it. That was the sum of the first 7 years of my life, in a paper bag that my foster mother saved to put the household trash in.
Please consider giving a gift to purchase a suitcase for a foster child who needs to know they are loved and not disposable like the trash.
Go to this link to make your donation. My brother and I and thousands of other foster kids who know what it feels like to carry your life in a trash bag, thank you.
http://www.togetherwerise.org/fundraise/ezraandhadassah.blogspot.com
