Garbage Bag Challenge aims to provide suitcases to foster children
Violet Rose's own experience as a foster child is the motivation behind the new charity
A Vancouver woman has started a project called The Garbage Bag Challenge, but it has more to do with lifting children's spirits than taking out the trash.
Violet Rose wants to help foster children by providing the small measure of dignity that can be found in a simple suitcase.
Rose herself grew up as a ward of the government, and recalls the many times she had to move homes, often with little or no warning.
"I didn't really have a say in any of it," said Rose. "I'd just be told that this is where I was going to go live and I'd get all my stuff together and I would go live there."
The experience was made even more distressing because each time she was told to pack up her things, she was handed a garbage bag to pack her stuff into.
"It's the message it sends," she said. "Just think for a few minutes, if someone showed up and said you needed to leave and handed you a garbage bag."
Rose believes using a garbage bag rather than a proper suitcase can't help but send a message to foster children that they themselves are disposable. That's the driving force behind the Garbage Bag Challenge.
"I have a vision, here in Vancouver and in B.C. and in all of Canada that every ministry office have a space dedicated where they have suitcases on hand," said Rose.
"It's not just some kids. It's every single child is being ensured they're given a suitcase."
Cara Willems heard about the project and donated a number of suitcases after getting friends and family involved.
"It's such a small part of the big crazy situation [foster children] are in, but my hope was in donating that for at least one moment, one kid can know somebody was thinking of them, and is loving them," said Willems.
Rose has turned herself into a walking billboard for her campaign by committing to carrying around a garbage bag instead of a purse for a full year.
A sign attached to the bag says, "Ask me how this garbage bag is helping to create healthier transitions for foster children/youth in Vancouver."
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With filed from Deborah Goble