Focus on the Family has partnered with Unclaimed Baggage in a new “Love Luggage Event” to help support foster children and other mothers with young children in need.
Unclaimed Baggage was founded in 1970 by Hugo Doyle Owens. The company is the nation’s only merchant of unclaimed and lost baggage and its contents. It collects and repurposes the 0.5% of lost airline luggage that is never reunited with its original owners.
Unclaimed Baggage also operated its Reclaimed for Good program. For every item sold, the entity donates an additional item to someone in need.
According to the organization, Reclaimed for Good’s “Love Luggage” initiative has supported thousands of foster children by providing personalized suitcases for them to use to transport their belongings.
“My father started with a borrowed pickup truck, a $300 loan and a dream,” said Bryan Owens, owner of Unclaimed Baggage.
“Fifty years ago, he visited Washington, D.C., to purchase the very first batch of unclaimed luggage from Trailways Bus Line. Today, we’re extraordinarily humbled by the enthusiasm around our business.”
On Friday, September 2, Unclaimed Baggage brought their new “50 Years, 50 States” Road Tour to Focus on the Family, where Focus staff decorated and painted 60 suitcases for children in need.
Here’s a sampling of the 60 painted suitcases:
Thirty of the 60 painted bags will be donated to women and children at Dream Centers’ Mary’s Home in Colorado Springs.
Each hand-painted bag will also contain both fun and essential items for its new owner.
Currently, the United States has more than 440,000 children in foster care. Focus on the Family’s Wait No More program helps inspire families to become involved in the lives of waiting kids, whether through adoption or in a different way.
To learn more about Wait No More, click here.
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Photo from Unclaimed Baggage.
