My Stuff Bags Foundation

The My Stuff Bags Program, a national 501 (c) (3) non-profit, began in 1998 as a response to a cry for help from agency caregivers, who described distraught, frightened children arriving for foster and crisis care with only the clothes on their backs and nothing to cling to for comfort and distraction. Rescuing agencies, focused on providing safe shelter, rarely have the resources to provide something as essential as a toothbrush or as comforting as a teddy bear. We fill that gap with My Stuff Bags.

Each individual age and gender appropriate My Stuff Bag is filled with new and needed items such as toiletries, clothing, school supplies, toys, books, a stuffed animal and a blanket, often handmade. The Bags are conservatively valued at $75 to $100 each and are provided to our carefully vetted “Partner Agencies” across the U.S. free of charge. Any non-profit agency in the United States serving rescued children may apply for My Stuff Bags, including state and county child and family services departments, foster care agencies, Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) agencies, crisis shelters (including those caring for battered women and their children), homeless shelters, school district programs for foster, at-risk and homeless children, and law enforcement agencies.

Since the Program’s inception, nearly 630,000 rescued children across the United States have received their very own My Stuff Bag. My Stuff Bags is our sole program, with more than 90% of our revenue, and 100% of our hearts, dedicated to it.

To our knowledge, no other nonprofit provides rescued children with personal necessities on such a consistent, high quality and geographically widespread basis. Our innovative approach is to have the Bags filled by volunteers with new, mostly donated rather than purchased items, making them special, creative, and the product of many caring hands across the country. They show rescued children in a way they can understand that their community, and their country, surrounds them. A child opening his or her My Stuff Bag might find a coloring book and crayons donated by a church organization, a clean tee-shirt and sweat pants from the Jones family, a blanket knit by a grandma in Oklahoma, a toothbrush and toothpaste from a dentist in Connecticut, a toy collected through a high school drive, a book from an Eagle Scout project, a hand-crafted car made by the Happy Factory of Utah, and a stuffed animal provided by a corporate group collection. All of these new treasures will have been placed into his or her My Stuff Bag by caring people at our Volunteer Center. The My Stuff Bag and its contents is theirs to keep and to accompany them as they make the difficult transition through shelter care and sometimes multiple foster placements.

The goal of the My Stuff Bags Program is to reach 20,000 desperate children across America with our individual duffels of new belongings each year. In-kind donations of new children’s items are collected and shipped to our warehouse by numerous compassionate individuals, service organizations, and businesses, who generously volunteer to make blankets or collect and contribute items for the bags. Volunteers sort the donated goods, first by gender and then into four age groupings: Infant (0-2 years), Young Child (3-6 years), Child (7-11 years), and Tween/Teen (12 and up). Bags are filled with new items by our volunteers, and shipped to the requesting Partner Agencies, who will distribute the Bags to the children in their care.

My Stuff Bags address the immediate physical and emotional needs of rescued children. Collectively, these insightful gifts are a tangible demonstration that the child is individually valued and that their feelings and needs are recognized. Each My Stuff Bag provides a hurting child not only essentials and comforts, but a message of hope.