Currently our organization has collected a supply of hygiene products but we have been unable to ensure our clients have a place for these items, especially fathers with unstable housing. We do not have the financial means to privately purchase duffel bags for all the clients we aim to serve. Yet, duffel bags are necessary to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of the Bags for Dads Program. We would love to be funded for the purpose of buying duffel bags.
We provide youth, who are growing up without their fathers, access to a positive, male role-model through our Youth Enrichment program. Our team members are a group of passionate individuals who have embraced brokenness in their own lives, and in-turn have committed their lives to supporting the fathers, families and youth we serve with doing the same thing. We provide low-income youth growing up without fathers with life skill education and activities that allow them to explore themselves and the world outside of Dorchester. We also help fathers have equal access to their children while ensuring that state agencies treat them with dignity and respect. We will alleviate this problem for fathers and youth through our Bags for Dads Initiative. These fathers have limited socioeconomic support and limited resources. Basic personal hygiene products, and a duffel bag to keep their belongings, serves as a fundamental tool for success as an individual and as a father. One-hundred percent of men who are released from incarceration are given only a plastic bag upon release. It is not uncommon for these clients to return to an unstable living situation and a hectic day-to-day schedule. Functioning in an fast-paced, high-stress environment is more manageable if the products we are able to provide can be kept in a safe, portable location. Bags for Dads includes a duffel bag of hygiene products, therapeutic transport from prison to home, a personalized mental health treatment plan and Life Coach connection. Through greater access to mental health services we can reunited fathers with their children. This project educates youth about the effects of incarceration as well as prevent/undo stigma of fathers of color and fathers who have been incarcerated. The hands-on learning is more effective than traditional classroom learning and provides youth with a way to give back though they are unable to donate hygiene items directly.
