Suitcases4Kids donates 100 suitcases to Walker residential students

Walker was the recent beneficiary of an unusual gift—approximately 100 gently used suitcases.

 The truckload of luggage was a donation was from the North Andover-based Suitcases4Kids. The suitcases will be given to children in Walker residential treatment programs—kids who often arrive at our Needham campus with a hastily gathered assortment of clothes and personal belongings. The suitcases will provide them with an alternative to the plastic garbage bags they often use transport their clothes and personal items.

 The Suitcases For Kids project began in Florida in 1995 when 10-year-old Aubyn Burnside learned that the average child in foster care moves three to four times. Adding to this disruption for some children are multiple psychiatric hospitalizations and admissions into residential programs like Walker.

 After the project lost momentum at the beginning of the decade, Suitcases4Kids was revived by Ron Nickerson, a former social worker for kids in specialized foster care and residential program director. He understands more clearly than most people how multiple foster placements can create stress and serial disruption. He is currently a foster dad to several boys with reactive attachment disorder, a diagnosis common to children who have experienced an odyssey of program placements and foster homes.

 Several of the suitcases were immediately given to children in the Walker Community-Based Treatment unit, a Needham Campus-based emergency stabilization program for children between three and ten years old and who arrived in psychiatric crisis—in some cases the result of severe trauma, abuse or neglect. Other suitcases were given to specific children at Walker who have experienced recent family disruption or who are preparing for reunification or a new foster family. The rest of the suitcases are in storage and will be given to children who are admitted to Walker over the next year.

 To find out more about Suitcases4Kids or to learn how you can help, visit their website.