Fill a bag

At eight years of age, she said she wanted to collect items to give to children in need. We chatted a bit about what that might mean and who her focus group should be. We decided that filling backpacks for children in foster care would not only fit her desire to help kids but would also fit our family's mission of caring for orphans and widows.

In that first year we collected 26 backpacks for children in our county's foster care system.

Four years later Backpacks of Hope has collected and donated a total of 568 backpacks and now serves the children in four counties.

Earlier this year we heard about a company which was choosing employee-nominated ministries and organizations for which they would match donations. A friend of ours works for this company and said she wanted to see if Backpacks of Hope could get selected. She and her husband are in the process of adopting from the foster care system and also have a heart for this population. We applied and BOH was selected! So in March we held a Matching Fundraiser and raised above and beyond our goal!

With the funds raised and matched, and the donations received, it was determined that in April we would hold our first ever Fill-A-Bag event.

It was her vision and her collaboration that brought this day to fruition.  So with 5 organizers, 24 packers and volunteers, 2 hours of set up, 2 hours of packing, and another hour of clean up, the first ever was complete. With 115 bags packed and ready for pick-up by those 4 counties next week, we consider the event to be a complete success!

She recently spent her career day experience with some folks in safety administration.

We can safely say this is the first and last time she'll

be in the back of a police car.

Not sure what she wants to do, she has plenty of time to figure that out. Some say teacher. She is very much like her mother. I can see her as a teacher, but more and more I see her in some form of social work and this is what she is thinking as well. Trauma is a buzzword these days but it's one that's not going away. She gets it. She has witnessed it first-hand in her siblings.  She knows what is healing and what is not. And she knows that one's definition of success has to change. Humans heal in their own way and their own time and some choose not to try. We can't change them. But we can love them. And this she knows well. She has been hurt but she understands that there's more to someone's behavior than what you see on the surface. She knows what secondary trauma looks like and hopefully she is learning how to avoid it in herself if she does choose to care for others. She will go far. And not just because I say so. There has been a prophesy over her life that sees her leading a large helping organization someday.

And as her mother I ponder all of these things in my heart.

Serve, love, and dream, my dear Eden. Think of the masses that have been comforted because you dared to believe that an 8 year old could start something like this!