GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP — JackEdward Schmick realized something could be different within the foster care system, so he took action to create change.
When Schmick was 5, he and younger sister Olivia were placed into foster care. They endured a rough journey, bouncing from home to home for about five years.
Each time Schmick and his sister relocated, the foster care system used black trash bags to transport their personal belongings.
“When you get removed from a home, they want to get in and out,” said Schmick, a Stockton University sophomore and a runner on the men’s cross country and track and field teams. “You are not getting removed for a good reason. It’s a dangerous situation, or it’s an uncomfortable situation. They are just taking any belongings they can find that seem like yours and throwing them into a trash bag and getting you out of there. Your safety is the first priority.”
Those experiences impacted him, and as Schmick continued to watch that process, he became more inquisitive, he said. Years later, he began a mission to ensure children in foster care do not have to endure that same ordeal.
In 2016, when he was 10, Schmick started Bags for Buddies, an organization that provides children in foster care with duffle bags or backpacks.
The organization aims to provide dignity and comfort when foster children are forced to relocate and have to transport personal belongings, as well as bring awareness to the challenges foster children face.
Schmick donated 120 duffel bags or backpacks before the current semester started. He gets bags from local businesses and from donors, including Stockton students and instructors. Because of his charity, many foster children across New Jersey now have a more respectable way of transporting their belongings.
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Seeing a need
The Bags for Buddies website says all of the donations help highlight the need for more compassionate treatment of foster children.
“They were just throwing my stuff into a black garbage bag,” Schmick said. “That did not make me feel good, and I already wasn’t (feeling good) being removed from a terrible situation. So I thought, is there any way I can fix this, because I am sure I wasn’t the only one who felt that way when seeing your stuff put in trash bags.
“I realized that even if it wasn’t new backpacks, I could collect gently used ones or any donations and donate backpacks to social workers. I thought that would give the kids some hope and they can even keep the bag at the end. Even if it’s just one kid, it’s one less kid who doesn’t have to feel that way.”
Schmick started Bags For Buddies when he and his sister finally had stability through adoption into a caring family with the support of a Knights of Columbus chapter in Sparta, Sussex County. His adoptive sister and mom, Rita-Ann, help him with the organization.
But Schmick also has some help from Stockton teammate Michael Palmadesso.
“It’s pretty cool to see what he does. I know that he has had a very interesting upbringing,” said the junior runner, who has helped Schmick for more than a year. “You can just tell by his character he has overcome a lot of that stuff through the experiences he has been in. He’s a tough person.”
Stockton cross country and track and field coach Jayson Resch said he is ”extremely impressed with everything Schmick has accomplished.
“It is awesome to see how he takes the initiative and balances all his activities. As a sophomore, I look forward to seeing his development both as a runner and a campus leader.”
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Keeping it going
Schmick’s goal is to see the kids’ reactions when they get the bags instead of just dropping them off at a New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency office.
“But I know that the social workers are taking good care of them,” he said.
Schmick is working on making Bags for Buddies a nonprofit 501© organization. He expects that to happen by the end of the year, and once it does, he said, he has many businesses that want to help out, mainly from North Jersey, where he’s from.
“I want to keep this going for as long as I can,” Schmick said. “I am just grateful God gave me this opportunity to be where I am at right now. It’s not about the popularity. If I could do this anonymously, I wouldn’t change anything. I am just glad I can use my voice and my platform to tell everyone there is always hope and help anybody in the community I can.”
A published writer
When Schmick was 16, he started writing a book about his life called “Your Biggest Opponent. “ The book was published this January and has sold more than 2,000 copies. It talks about being born into adversity and how that shaped Schmick’s life.
“Because of the foster care system and just with the situation I was in, it was really hard to cope with all that, being a child without your stable parents at the time and always moving to a new town,” Schmick said. “So I never had anything to cope with all that emotion. I always shoved it down. It made it very unhealthy for me.”
In his book, Schmick discusses everything he tried to hide in his mind while growing up in foster care. He writes about how running helped his life, his high school sports career at Sussex County Tech and how he learned to conquer his biggest opponent — himself.
“I can blame a million different things on my past situations, but at the end of the day it’s up to you to decide what you want your true goals to be and where you want your path to be taken in life,” he said.
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The message he wants to convey with his book is that “there is always hope,” Schmick said.
“The avenue of running, and eventually track, helped me curve that and get me to where I am,” he said. “So I wrote this book to have people realize there is hope and there is always an outlet. If they can see my story, they can understand that there might be hope for them and there are always ups for the downs. If you don’t have faith, you have to keep your head up and keep going.”
Contact Patrick Mulranen:
609-272-7217
PMulranen@pressofac.com
X @ACPressMulranen
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