TRAVERSE CITY — By all appearances, it’s just a paper bag, and a small one at that. But it’s what the hand-size brown bag might hold that gives incalculable worth.
Starting this month, area residents will see small brown paper bags tucked inside the Record-Eagle and other print media. Those bags also will be located for pick-up at local Olesons and Oryana stores.
Their purpose? Those bags are, in fact, small brown envelopes in which area residents can insert monetary donations — checks and money orders — to the Child and Family Services to benefit foster care in the area.
The annual summer Brown Bag Campaign has raised more than $630,000 for these needs since inception, helped recruit many foster and adoptive families, and is recognized as a progressive program that helps hundreds of children heal from trauma each year through foster care and other valuable programs. The campaign raises funds that are used, in part, for clothing, school supplies, transportation, and opportunities such as music, dance lessons, sports equipment, or summer camp.
In its own promotion of the the program, CFS tells area residents that many children “… arrive on our doorsteps with few of their own belongings — often shoved into a brown paper or plastic bag,” adding that the Brown Bag Campaign “reminds us of the plight of children entering the foster care system — and of the constant need for foster and adoptive parents to help care for them.”
Carissa and Rob Cowen of Traverse City are foster parents and advocates for the Brown Bag Program. She is a certified medical assistant at Munson Healthcare, and he is a machine operator at Cone Drive.
“The Brown Paper Bag program is so important,” Carissa said. “So many kids either have very little thrown into bags, or really nothing, at all to take to their foster home. I believe the Brown Bag program helps bring awareness to the needs many of these children have and the loving foster care homes they need to grow, learn, and feel happy and safe at. This program helps so many children with their needs.
“The staff at Child and Family Services has been an amazing group of people to work with. The case workers really love and care about these children. We have had the pleasure of working with Katie Kelly for the past year and she is so hard-working and dedicated to making sure the foster child we currently have in our care is having all of his needs met.”
The Cowens, who both come from very large families in the northern Michigan region – have been involved with CFS since the spring of 2023.
“We have always wanted children, but were unable to have our own and knew there are children out there that need two loving parents, so we decided to get involved,” Carissa said. “Being foster parents has been the most rewarding experience of our lives.
“Our children have always been our fur babies – two dogs, two cats, two goats and two ducks – but we always wanted a child of our own, but were never able to have one.
We had tried to adopt in the past on three different occasions but each time the birth parents changed their minds and either wanted to raise the child or have a family member raise the child.
We did a lot of talking and research and decided that being a foster parent is what we wanted to do.
“We have so much to give a child, and we know the need for foster parents is big, so this is our way of giving back to our community and helping a child learn and grow, and have the security, and love that so many desperately need when they enter foster care.”
The Cowens currently are serving as foster parents.
“Yes, you will become attached to the child, but at the end of the day, if they are able to be reunified with their parents, that child will always know they have you in their corner. A child can never have too many people who love and support them,” Carissa said. “Being a foster parent is not easy, and you do have to help children work through their trauma, but knowing you made a difference in a child’s life and gave them exactly what they needed at a very scary, and uncertain time is an amazing and rewarding experience. We wish more people would see foster parenting this way.”