A Cayuga County store is seeking community support as it helps to raise donations for foster children.
The King Ferry Corner Store is collecting gently used luggage to donate to Fostering Greatness, a Buffalo-based nonprofit that assists foster kids and alumni. The store will collect and hold items until May 21. The next day, the items will be driven to Buffalo for donation to the nonprofit as part of its Luggage of Love drive.
Store owner Rebecca Binns and employee Michele Carlin are hosting the collection at the corner store. Carlin told FLX Local Media that the purpose of the drive is to provide those leaving the foster care system with a sense of dignity.
“Normally, a foster child or a child who is aging out of the foster system is handed a black garbage bag and told, ‘Here, put your stuff in this,’ and that’s pretty heartless. So, now these kids are given their own piece of luggage that someone else has donated, and when they go from place to place or when they age out of the system, they have a little bit more dignity and they have their own suitcase to put their stuff in.”
Buffalo Bills running back and former foster child Ray Davis is one of the event partners for the May 22 event in Buffalo. He is also a former student of Carlin, who was his high school math teacher at Trinity-Pawling School in Dutchess County. Carlin said that when she found out he was working with Fostering Greatness on the drive, she approached the corner store’s owner, Rebecca Binns, to set up a collection in Cayuga County.
“She’s just a good person, and when she and I were talking about it, she said that I could do that. I think that’s a really nice thing for her.”
Luggage can be dropped off at the King Ferry Corner Store (960 Rt 34B, King Ferry) during regular business hours.
Dr Leah Angel Daniel is the founder and executive director of Fostering Greatness. She told FLX Local Media that, while based in Buffalo, her nonprofit works to assist foster care youth, young adults, and alumni across the country.
Besides Davis, other event partners include M&T Bank, Northland Workforce Training Center, and the Redlich Horwitz Foundation.
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