Baggage

  Claim

A How-to Guide for Starting a Baggage Claim Program in Your Town

dedicated to finding new or gently used backpacks, duffel bags and suitcases for children in foster care.

BAGGAGE CLAIM

Table of Contents

1. A Little About Katya
2. A letter we used in asking for help with Baggage Claim. (It also contains a note that can be put in a church bulletin or a club newsletter.)
3. A poster to put up in a workplace or break room - it can be used as a sign to designate a drop off site for bags.
4. A record-keeping sheet that can be used to record the names of donors who have made large contributions (like corporations,      businesses) and might need to have a personal letter of thanks. With a little alteration, it can also be used as a way of keeping up with the names of people who are collecting bags and need documentation to fulfill a requirement (scouts, youth councils, students).   
5. A letter that we used to thank people for their donation if they wanted a tax deduction.  It contains the 501(C) 3 number of the agency, Families Are Special, Inc. in NLR that we partner with for Hope’s Miracle.

6.    Work sheets that provide the steps to follow to start your own      Baggage Claim program in your state.

7.    Article from KTHV Channel 11’s local coverage of Baggage Claim.   

A WORD OF ADVICE:  If you want to start a Baggage Claim program in your state, the first thing to do is to contact your Department of Human Services to see if someone is willing to coordinate your project with you.  And… because of the problem of storing bags, we have found that it is easier to take the bags as we collect them, so that they can be distributed to the social workers a little at a time, rather than inundating the office with a lot of bags at once.

January 20, 2006

 A bit about Katya:

In 2000 I brought home a new daughter from Yekaterinburg, Russia.  She was 11 years old, malnourished, and spoke no English.   Katya's picture was on a "waiting child" Internet site.  All that I could learn about her was that she had cerebral palsy and needed surgery on both legs and her back.  An inquiry to the orphanage gave me three sentences:  "She’s very smart and everyone loves her.  She can find something in common with everyone she meets.  She has lost everything she ever had, yet she remains loving, generous and giving."  All I could think was, "Sign me up!"

Nine months, three trips to Russia, and thousands of miles later, I had her at home in Arkansas.  She had already had her surgeries – 48 days alone in the hospital in a full body cast.  She knew her ABC’s to P in English....  and she had a fierce determination to make the best of the new chance that life had unexpectedly offered her.

Within six months of arriving, she was asking questions like, "Mom, do you believe in destiny?  Why me out of all the children in Russia?  Why did I get to come to Arkansas?"

In another six months she had won the state's Red Ribbon essay contest with her essay that she called, "Drugs, Alcohol and Tobacco - Three Monsters."  In it she says, "Most of all, I'm angry about alcohol.  It took my parents.  Do you want to know how?  Read the Rest..... Don't you do it."

Another six months later she won a reflections essay contest with an essay called, "I Hold in My Hand the Flag of My Country."  In closing that essay she says, "When I look at the flag of the United States of America I see how strong America is.  I think of how big this country is.  I see the nice, hard-working people of America.  I see the symbol of my freedom and my future."

This new American is determined to make a contribution that makes a difference in her new country.   As a 9th grader at East Campus in North Little Rock, she was asking questions like, "Mom, don't you think that the replication of DNA is just the neatest thing that you ever heard have?"  With a 3.6 grade point, she's certainly bright enough to make a meaningful contribution.

She has served over 3000 hours with the North Little Rock Mayor’s Youth Council in the metro area in the time that she has lived here.  Because of her service she was selected to greet President Bush when visited Little Rock this fall.  Last year she was selected as Arkansas Youth Humanitarian for her work with Hope’s Miracle.  Recently she was honored by the Sertoma Club with their Service to Mankind Award for her Baggage Claim program.

At the end of the year at Lakewood Middle School, my daughter Katya Lyzhina, won the school-wide honor of best citizen - “Student of Character.”  When the principal announced her name as “Katie Lasagna,” she smiled wide and bounded up to the stage with the same joy and determination that she faces each new day. 

Some people have heroes that they admire from afar.  I have the privilege of living with my hero every day. 

Sincerely,

North Little Rock Mayor’s Youth Council

January 19, 2006

To whom it may concern:

Can you help us with my daughter's Start Something Project?  She is a member of the North Little Rock Mayor's Youth Council and has started a program called Hope's Miracle.  Through it she has collected over $4500 to help children be adopted from foster care.  The money that she collected was placed in the U.S. Waiting Child Fund to serve as low interest loans of up to $5000 per family to help defray unexpected adoption costs.  This December a family used this money for their third adoption, a baby boy with Down syndrome.

This year she is adding another component to her program.  She recently saw a foster child in the newspaper who was being removed from a NLR home.  The child and mother were putting everything that the child owned into a garbage bag.  We discussed how that would make a person feel - to have no control over your life, to have to move constantly, and to have to keep everything you own in a garbage bag.  We hit upon the idea of collecting luggage for these children, hoping that in some small way we could help ease their pain.

Will you help us with this collection of bags by asking your church or civic group to join us?  Below is a copy for a church bulletin, if you'd be so kind as to pass it along for your pastor or church secretary to add.  We'll be happy to come and pick up any donations.

Thanks so much!

Jan Scholl and Katya Lyzhina

Copy for a bulletin or newsletter:

     Baggage Claim: A Luggage Program for Foster Children

Please donate usable suitcases, duffle bags, and backpacks for foster children. These children are often removed from their homes in emergency situations and must put their belongings in trash bags. As they move from home to home these bags become a symbol of their lives.

Please help to give their lives more dignity by furnishing them with a bag to keep their personal items in. Please leave your donations (wherever you want them left - example:  with the secretary in the front office) and they will be picked up weekly. This is a program of Hope's Miracle, an adoption assistance program started by Katya Lyzhina. 

(For pick up, call xxxxx)

Please donate your gently used suitcases, duffle bags, back packs for foster children. 

These children are often removed from their homes in an emergency situation and their belongings are put into a trash bag.  As they are moved from home to home, this trash bag becomes a symbol of their lives and hurts their self-esteem. 

Please help to give their lives more dignity by furnishing them with a bag to keep their personal items in.  Please leave your bags here and they will be picked up weekly.

Thank you.

Katya Lyzhina - Hope's Miracle Project - nlrmyc@aol.com

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                 Hope’s Miracle  

Jan. 20, 2006

Dear Friends,

Thank you for your donation to Hope’s Miracle’s luggage collection program.  Hope’s Miracle is a program started last year by Katya Lyzhina, a 16 year-old adoptee.  She has collected over $4500 to help another child be adopted from the foster system.  

This year she is adding another component to her program.  She recently saw a foster child in the newspaper who was being removed from a NLR home.  The child and mother were putting everything that the child owned into a garbage bag.  We discussed how that would make a person feel - to have no control over your life, to have to move constantly, and to have to keep everything you own in a garbage bag.  We hit upon the idea of collecting luggage for these children, hoping that in some small way we could help ease their pain and give them back some dignity…  and so Baggage Claim began.

There are 1094 foster children just in Pulaski County.   We will continue to collect until each of those children has a bag.  We are grateful for your help.  Your items are tax deductible.  Our non-profit 501(C)3 number is  211 895 676.

Thank you,

Donor’s Name:  _______________________________

Description of items:

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Estimated Value:  __________________

The Game Plan Worksheet for Baggage Claim

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Possible publicity strategies (weekly community newspaper, other news media, newsletters, church bulletins, speak at civic organizations to explain project, etc.):

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Immediate first step (create committees such as recruitment, research, publicity, funding/resources)

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Former Orphan Collects Bags For Foster Children

A former Russian orphan who was adopted by a Sherwood family has collected more than 1,000 bags and pieces of luggage to give back to kids in foster care.

Katya Lyzhina, 16, has been busy. She's collected more than 1,000 bags over a period of several months.

Lyzhina says, "My goal was 1,094 because that's how many kids are in foster care in Pulaski County. So, I promised myself that I would collect at least one bag for every child."

As an orphan in Russia, Katya remembers carrying her belongings around in a trash bag and when she recently read a story of a Pulaski County foster child in a similar situation, she knew she should help.

Lyzhina says, "She was putting all her belongings in a trash bag. That seems like such a bad representation of what her life is. Everything she owns is in there. She carries her whole life in a trash bag."

When Katya first began her project, she made calls to churches and businesses like Heritage Communications in North Little Rock. The company decided to make it its staff Christmas project and in the end gave Katya several hundred bags.

Lyzhina says, "My mom and I pick them up.  We bring them here to the house, and then I record them and go through them to make sure that there's nothing wrong with them, that they’re in reasonable condition and are child-friendly."

"If I had gone through what she's gone through in my life, I'd be bitter and angry," Katya's mother, Jan Scholl, says.

To Katya's mom, she's her hero. After meeting the initial goal, they have their eyes on bigger numbers: 6,000 or a bag for every foster child in the state.

Scholl says, "If a social worker has bags to keep in the trunk of the car to take with them, then the child can have a suitcase or duffel bag when they are removed from their home. Instead of saying,  “Here, we have to leave now.  Put your things in this plastic bag.”  They can say, “Here, honey, here's a duffel bag for you to put your things in."

If you have questions, please contact us at nlrmyc@aol.com.  Good luck!