Rob and Reece Scheer are the proud parents of multiple children from the foster care system. All four children came from difficult circumstances – ones of abuse, neglect, and a general lack of compassion.
For Rob, a former foster care child himself, it was important to show children in similar circumstances love and empathy. This is why the Scheers started Comfort Cases, a nonprofit based in the Washington DC area that provides foster kids with bags filled with new clothes, books, blankets, and other essentials to replace their trash bags filled with tattered belongings – something far too many foster children are familiar with.
The couple went on Ellen to discuss their family’s story.
The Scheers recently purchased a farm to raise their family on, as one of their children has Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Upon their research, they learned that children with this condition do better around animals and when eating organic foods.
‘We just didn’t buy a farm. We bought a farm and within a weekend we got 26 chickens, two goats… and we had six ducks, and we have a couple of dogs, and a cat, and a couple birds,’ Rob explains.
‘But what we really have is a son we were told would never talk and would possibly never walk without braces on his legs. And now, three years later, he’s not only running and walking and laughing, but he’s loving.’
The conversation then turns to Rob’s backstory as someone who has been through the foster care system himself.
‘So 40 years ago, I came into foster care carrying a trash bag with all my belongings. I remember when I became homeless at 18 through foster care that I had my trash bag with my stuff in it,’ he recalls.
‘And all of sudden our children… I went to pick them up and they were carrying trash bags with all of their belongings in it. And I remember walking into our home and handing the trash bags to Reece and saying it’s unbelievable that 40 years later these, again, invisible kids… we’re making them feel like trash by putting all their belongings in a trash bag.’
It was then that the couple started Comfort Cases to provide children in foster care not only with a new blanket, a new pair of pyjamas, and self-care products like soap and a toothbrush, but also with a book so the children can grow a love of reading.
The couple distributes the Comfort Cases in Maryland, Virginia and Washington DC, but hopes to be able to go nationwide in their distribution.
Help Rob and Reece achieve this goal by donating to the official Comfort Cases Go Fund Me page.
