Seventeen-year old Conner Johnson is a high school senior at the Agricultural Scientific Academy of Tracy High and he turned his school project into a mission: to make foster kids less lonely by collecting beddings for them.
Johnson drew inspiration from his family, especially from his mother who, for the last four years, has taken in and cared for 11 foster babies until they could be placed with a caring family. Conner said that it gave him a first-person look at how the foster system works, how the foster parents and the children struggle and what they had to go through, which made him decide that he wanted to do something for them.
Support for Care 4 Kids
Conner Johnson’s project, which is one of the new crop of community service themed projects that students at the academy have submitted, intends to collect colorful and printed twin beddings and send them to foster kids through the nonprofit, Care 4 Kids. This nonprofit gives foster children a personalized storage box when they are placed with a family. Each box is filled with toiletries, handmade blanket, bed sheets and clothes. Conner Johnson interviewed the Care 4 Kids founder when he prepared his project paper. That was when he knew that the organization lacked printed sheets.
Bed sheet collection
Thus Conner decided that he would collect at least 100 colorful sheets suitable for all ages up to age 18. He planned on where he would be placing his collection boxes in mid-July and decided on putting them in three local businesses in his community. He supported his bedding collection drive with posts on several social networking sites.
His mother supported his project with a post on Facebook. The response was great and even the babies that she had cared for in the past came to give their donations. Conner has already surpassed his target of 100 sheets and more are coming, with some of them arriving by mail from other cities such as Pennsylvania, Texas and Nevada.
The Case 4 Kids founder, Lori Souza, is very appreciative of the efforts of Conner Johnson, saying that it is such a selfless act, which will make a big impact on the lives of the foster kids who would be receiving them. She said that her organization could not buy bed sheets for the children because it would be very expensive for them. She added that they are very important for these children who know that the beds they would be using have been used by many others before them. Since they do not own the beds, at least they own the sheets, which means a lot to these kids.
Copyright: karammiri / 123RF Stock Photo
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