#GivingTuesday: Give a foster child a suitcase

It’s the season of giving, and instead of giving people unnecessary plastic objects, a lot of you are looking for worthy charities to help.

Turning Points for Children is a good one. They’ve been serving the poorest areas of Philadelphia since the 1800s, and they’re having a tote and suitcase drive:

Approximately 4,000 children in Philadelphia experience being taken outside of their home and put into foster care system each year. When children are removed from their homes and are enduring this traumatic process, their belongings are placed in trash bags.

Providing a child with a new suitcase or duffel bag will help replace these trash bags and change the way the children travel from home to home.

No matter how broke we sometimes think we are, most of us aren’t reduced to carrying around our life’s possessions in a trash bag. I teared up when I read this.

I can’t solve all the other problems in the world. But this, I can do. I can give a foster child a new suitcase. Can you?

Philadelphia has the highest rate of deep poverty of any major American city. That means at least half of the people living here are below the poverty line.

Turning Points for Children provides services to foster children and their families in Lower Northeast and West/Southwest Philadelphia. It has begun a campaign to increase the number of local supports for children in its care. It is looking for donations of suitcases and duffle bags or donations to purchase them to help these children protect their belongings.

Drop-off locations are the Turning Points offices at 415 S. 15th Street in Center City; 4329 Griscom Street in Frankford; and St. Joachim Church, 1527 Church St. in Frankford.

For more information, call Amanda Jones at 267-398-4726 or Latasha Myers at 215-287-4353.

You can also donate via Paypal, credit or debit card here, or via GoFundMe on their Facebook page.

And please, share this post with your Facebook friends. Let’s get this done.