The Central Missouri Foster Care and Adoption Association Traveling Trunk made two visits to Montgomery County in a span of a week, giving families from the area an opportunity to access free clothes and hygiene products.

The Traveling Trunk was at Montgomery County Middle School on April 28 and at the Wellsville-Middletown R-I School on May 6. The large trunk had clothes for men and women and young children who are from foster, adoptive and kinship families.

Ashley Owen and Kylee Waite, social workers from the R-I and R-II school districts, respectively, teamed up to help bring the Traveling Trunk to Montgomery County.

“Our juvenile officer, Lindsay Meyer, brought a training from the Central Missouri Foster Care and Adoption Association to Montgomery County in the fall,” Waite said. “They introduced us to all of these resources that are available to Montgomery County. We are the farthest eastern region that they cover. They’re based in Jefferson City, but they do provide resources for kiddos and families in Montgomery County. They were looking to get more involved in Montgomery County as we were wanting to gain some of those resources for our community. That’s when Ashley and I started partnering together and decided that we wanted to bring this to the community and utilize this resource for the community.”

The CMFCAA serves 24 counties in the central part of Missouri. Its mission is to support the kinship, foster and adoptive children, youth and families.

“You basically just reach out to them and if you have a community need, they’ll do their best to incorporate their services and their resources to us here in these small communities,” Owen said.

Owen said the Traveling Trunk was essential to the Wellsville area since it has a pretty high population of kinship families, meaning that there are children who are raised by grandparents, aunts and uncles. 

“The traveling trunk was something that caught my eye,” Owen said. “Especially with transportation being a barrier for some of our families in the community, they come directly to us. So I contacted (CMFCAA director of development) Courtney (Beyer) and we said we were going to hold two separate ones, one in Montgomery and one in Wellsville. So, if that transportation was a barrier, we will be able to incorporate this for everyone in the county.”

The Traveling Trunk operated from noon-5 p.m. in both locations. Each child received up to 20 items. 

“If there’s a need, it makes me feel really grateful to be able to fill in the gaps,” Owen said. “So, clothing is something that we haven’t had a resource for that I’m aware of here in Wellsville. So, whenever they said they would come to us and provide 20 items, I was like, ‘That’s amazing.’”

Waite said she was concerned about the attendance at the Trunking Trunk when it was held at MCMS. 

“We didn’t have a big turnout,” she said. “We did have a couple of people waiting in the parking lot for them to get there, so we had some excitement. But we’re hoping to build that overtime.”

Owen said community outreach specialists came to the Wellsville area to help promote the Traveling Trunk. 

“They drove in a separate vehicle,” she said. “They actually popped into all of the local churches, surrounding schools and the library. We’re advocating for all of their other services in addition to this (Traveling Trunk) as well.”

Waite said she hopes the Traveling Trunk will make a return to the county soon.

“What I want our families to know in the community when we bring it back the next time is if they just happen to be a grandparent, aunt, uncle or cousin who is caring for a family member or caring for a child, the trunk is open to them,” she said.