Community Joins Hands To Donate Essentials To Kids In Foster Care

NORTH FORK, NY — Once again, the community will come together Sunday to help provide teens in foster care or homeless shelters with basic essentials to help them feel loved and nurtured.

The 3rd Annual "Case's for Cases" event takes place at Case's Place, located at 650 First Street in New Suffolk, on Sunday from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

The event, organized by Regina Calcaterra, Kait's Angels, and Case's Place, is meant to raise funding and collect essential items for Birthday Wishes Long Island, an organization that brings birthday parties to children living in local foster care.

"Inspired by 'No More Trash Bags For Foster Kids!", the goal is to provide "comfort cases" for youth living in foster care or homeless shelters, so they no longer need garbage bags to carry their possessions in the agonizing and ever-shifting search for shelter.

"Our goal through Case's for Cases is to pave their pathway out of poverty and/or abandonment with self-esteem and kindness, by providing basic essentials and comfort items in a suitable case to carry them in and to provide a touch of warmth and comfort in their foster care and shelter room," event organizers said.

Organizers said they will provide complimentary cases, to-go goodie and foodie bags, and "inspiration." Guests are asked to donate the essentials to fill the cases and comfort items as the price of admission, with a minimum of $25.

Items can be donated either by walking through Case's Place, driving by and dropping off items, donating on Amazon, or dropping off items at Wendy's Deli, located at 55 Middle Road in Mattituck.

To view the Comfort Cases Wish List on Amazon, click here.

For Calcaterra, an attorney and best-selling New York Times author, the mission is deeply personal: In her book "Etched in the Sand," she opens the doors to the unspeakable childhood she experienced with her four siblings on Long Island.

An abused child, Calcaterra spent her earliest years at the mercy of a mentally disturbed and alcoholic and now-deceased mother. There were dark days when she was a child savagely beaten, hungry, cold, foraging for clothes and food, sleeping in the open trunk of a car — and later, homeless and at the mercy of the foster care system, where she was abused and separated from her younger siblings.

It's with compassion and empathy garnered from grim truth that Calcaterra has become a champion for other children and teens who desperately need help. And now, during the pandemic, that dire need has continued to escalate, she said.

"Our most vulnerable populations, such as our foster and homeless youth, are truly suffering," she said. "Most of them do not have parents or any safety net whatsoever, due to circumstances they have no control over."

Having a new comfort item, such as a blanket, washcloth, a piece of clean clothing, as well as essential hygiene items will make a difference in how they feel about themselves, Calcaterra explained. Also knowing that others are thinking about them lifts up their self-esteem. "It's a simple gesture, but it makes a forever impact," Calcaterra said.

Calcaterra said Maryanne and Ken Birmingham, proprietors of Case's Place, were inspired to launch Cases's for Cases by watching "No More Garbage Bags for Foster Kids!"

"Their enthusiasm was contagious," which resulted in Kait's Angels — an organization created to do good works in memory of Kaitlyn Doorhy who died while away at college — and Birthday Wishes Long Island to co-sponsor the events, she said.

Calcaterra launched her own 100-percent women-owned law firm of eight, Calcaterra Pollack LLP, during the pandemic.

Calcaterra said she was motivated to write her first book after serving as a board member of You Gotta Believe, an organization that works to get older foster children adopted into "forever" homes. Her past has left its imprint on her life and heart and on her siblings, she said.

The foster care system in the United States, Calcaterra said, still spends its resources and efforts on preparing teenage foster children how to live independently once they age out of care at 18 or 21.

To those children who may be facing seemingly insurmountable challenges, Calcaterra has a message: "The journey will be hard, long and sometimes dark, but you need to believe in your light because rising above is your choice. Make the right one."