✝️May is Foster Care Awareness Month. Our First PWP Christmas Every Month gift recipient was Day 1 Bags. God keeps calling us back as we have joined their Foster Care awareness campaign for the month of May.
👀Check out Day1 Bags website & Facebook page to learn more and how you can participate. Join us on Friday, 12MAY2023 as we will document our day bringing awareness to the needs of our children in Foster Care #DignityNotTrash.
FACTS: There are over 391,000 children and youth in foster care. Mental and behavioral health is the largest unmet health need for these children and teens.
FACTS: Up to 80 percent of children in foster care have significant mental health issues, compared with approximately 18 to 22 percent of the general population.
🗑️The trash bag is the “unofficial” luggage for foster youth.
ℹ️From Day 1 Bags:
What is the #DignityNotTrash Challenge?
The #DignityNotTrash Challenge is a challenge Day 1 Bags developed to help our supporters, friends, and others raise awareness about foster youth’s experiences by carrying their belongings in a trash bag. Foster youth, whenever they are moving from home to home, are given trash bags to place their belongings in. In May 2023, we want to walk in the shoes of thousands of foster youth.
Who can participate in this challenge?
You! Anyone who would like to raise awareness; your family, coworkers, friends, and strangers – you name it. We ask you to be sensitive to any triggers that anyone (especially foster youth) may have if they had to carry their items in a trash bag. We do not want to resurrect emotions that are painful and cause more distress. The goal of this challenge is not to shame or trivialize foster youths’ experiences but to bring everyone to a greater understanding of some of the challenges that foster youth have to face.
How can I participate in this challenge?
You can participate in this challenge in one or many of the following ways:
– load your possessions in a trash bag. Carry it throughout the day, and invite people to ask why you are carrying your belongings in a trash bag. 12MAY2023, I will use a rubbish bag for my stuff. Join me that day!
– social media posts telling others about the challenge you are taking on. Ask them to join you in the challenge during May Foster Care Awareness Month. – use their hashtag #DignityNotTrash
– if you desire, donate to nonprofit Day 1 Bags to support our mission of providing high-quality bags to youth in foster care.
–take a picture of yourself and post use #DignityNotTrash as the hashtag and @day1bags to tag us or email your photo to dignitynottrash@gmail.com.
– create a fundraiser on social media for Day 1 Bags, tag or challenge others to join in.
– send a photo and a story of your day, where did you go, how did you feel, did anyone ask you why you were carrying a trash bag everywhere? It’s wide open and let them know about us!
– if you want, create a badge that says “Ask me why I am carrying a trash bag!” tag on your shirt to invite people to feel comfortable to come up to you and ask. That is your time to expose and let others know about the challenge youth in foster care face daily.
ℹ️Day1 Bags Challenge Group on FB:https://www.facebook.com/groups/dignitynottrash
⁉️Why do people use a trash bag for possessions?
Because the youth was removed or rescued in the middle of the night with what they could stuff in a garbage bag.
Because they were runaways or rescues who showed up with nothing, and a plastic trash bag is actually more practical than a cardboard box, because it’s waterproof.
Because people don’t donate backpacks or luggage nearly as often as social services need them.
🚨Join me on 12MAY to carry your belongings in a garbage bag and raise awarenes to the needs of Foster Care Children.
#tuxedocat #christianfaith #pawsitiveIMPACT #day1bags #christianaction #DignityNotTrash #James1:27