Rob Scheer Turned a Childhood Memory Into a Mission to Help Foster Children

When Rob Scheer entered foster care as a child, he carried his belongings in a trash bag. Decades later, that painful memory inspired him to create a charity that has now provided more than 300,000 backpacks and duffel bags to children entering foster care.

A Childhood Experience He Never Forgot

Scheer entered foster care when he was young and remembers arriving at a foster home carrying his belongings in a worn trash bag.

He later aged out of the foster care system at 18. Even after building a career and creating a family of his own, the memory stayed with him.

The Moment That Changed Everything

Years later, Scheer and his husband, Reece, decided to adopt children from the foster care system. When their children arrived with their possessions packed in trash bags, Scheer immediately recognised the experience.

He wondered why children were still being given trash bags to carry their most important belongings decades after he had experienced the same thing.

That question became the starting point for a new mission.

Starting With Backpacks at the Dining Table

In 2013, Scheer and his family began assembling backpacks filled with useful and comforting items for children entering foster care.

The first packing event took place in December that year. What began as a small family effort eventually became Comfort Cases, a nonprofit organisation dedicated to giving foster children proper bags and personal items when they enter the system.

From One Family to Hundreds of Thousands of Children

Comfort Cases has since distributed more than 300,000 backpacks and larger duffel bags to children across all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom.

The organisation works with volunteers, social-service agencies and other community partners to provide children with items such as clothing, toiletries, blankets and other personal necessities.

Why the Bag Matters

For Scheer, the backpack is about more than carrying possessions. It represents dignity at a moment when children may already be experiencing major disruption in their lives.

His organisation aims to replace the experience of placing a child’s belongings into a garbage bag with something that tells the child that their possessions — and the child themselves — matter.

A Personal Story Became a Larger Mission

Scheer’s work demonstrates how a difficult childhood memory can eventually become the motivation for helping others facing similar circumstances.

What began with a few backpacks packed around a family’s dining table has grown into an organisation reaching children across multiple countries.

For Scheer, the goal remains straightforward: every child entering foster care should have a proper bag for their belongings instead of a trash bag.

Sources

• Comfort Cases — “Rob Scheer” — founder biography and organisation history.
• Times of India — “In 2013, Rob Scheer began packing backpacks at his dining table after recalling carrying his belongings in trash bags” — October 2, 2026.
• Comfort Cases — “Our Cause” — information about foster children and the organisation’s mission.