Imagine the life altering experience of being thrusted from the comfort and security of your own home. Suddenly you find your family out on the streets. Gone is the security of the space you’ve known. Your children are missing the familiarity of their surroundings and the use of the personal things.

Imagine the discomfort of this experience being magnified by having to walk away from everything you own. Unable to save all of the things you’ve worked so hard to attain. The nightmare of leaving it all behind has become your reality. So you grab a few plastic garbage bags and quickly shove in a variety of items. Pausing just long enough to think of the essentials your family will need wherever you land from this whirlwind of events.

Now imagine every morning at 5am a mother awakens in overflow shelter. Immediately to her right are her two small children who lay sleeping on a shelter cot. To her left, a series of plastic bags which contain an assortment of the family’s clothing and other valuable keepsakes she’s desperately trying to hold on to. Despite her most valiant efforts this mode of transporting their belongings is ineffective; even more so, embarrassing.   

The burden on a mother being homeless with her children is lofty enough on its own. Adding the weight of losing everything that she’s fought hard to maintain compounds the negative impact. As we aspire to eradicate homelessness on a systemic level, there are incremental actions we can take along the way. Dignity Duffels is a practical solution to one of the most common problems associated with transient living…plastic bags.

Please join us as we aspire to restore a bit of dignity to 100 families currently experiencing homelessness.