Micah Wilson, a 13-year-old St. Charles youth, sits in front of some of the completed journey bags destined for foster children. (BMO Harris photo)

A connection with a family that fosters children has resulted in some welcome aid for foster kids in the Fox River valley and beyond.

Micah Wilson, a 13-year-old St. Charles youth, is best friends with a member of that family and saw first-hand the difficulties foster children face when leaving one home and entering another.

He was determined to find a way to help.

Micah first joined his friend’s family in a fun run—raising enough money to send at least three foster children to summer camp.

But he wanted to do more.

Micah reached out to a local representative of the Forgotten Initiative, a nonprofit that supports the foster care community through service projects, mentoring and family support efforts.

There he learned about journey bags.

“Often foster families will get a call and take in a child in the middle of the night—sometimes all the children have is what they quickly collect from their home—often in a garbage bag,” Micah’s mom Courtney Wilson explained.

Journey bags are filled with necessities such as shampoo, toothbrush and toothpaste, comb, brush, pajamas, and comfort items such as a stuffed animal, books, and a blanket. They’re given to the children when they are placed in a foster home.

“The journey bags also include a note that basically says you are not forgotten, just so that the kids know that there are people out there who care about them,” Courtney Wilson added.

Learning that there are a great number of children in the Batavia-Geneva-St. Charles area in foster care, in 2016, he set a goal to create 2,000 journey bags for kids in foster care.

Micah and the Student Ministries team at Christ Community Church, where his mom Courtney Wilson serves as an elementary pastor, organized their own fun run last spring. They raised $24,000—enough to make 700 journey bags.

“Which was wonderful,” Courtney Wilson said.

However, Micah set a far higher goal. He wanted to create 2,000 bags.

Seeing a post on Facebook about BMO Harris 200 virtual wish fountain, his mom sent in Micah’s wish for 2,000 journey bags for foster kids.

“My mom didn’t tell me at first about the wish fountain so it was a surprise,” Micah said.

BMO Harris volunteers work at a warehouse in the Pilsen neighborhood filling journey bags as part of Micah Wilson’s project to make 2,000 bags. (BMO Harris photo)

The two headed to the city and were ushered into a warehouse in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood where Micah was greeted by 70 BMO Harris employees who spent the morning packing journey bags to complete Micah’s goal.

“It was a wonderful thing for Micah to learn that the whole community is behind things like this,” Courtney Wilson said.

With the success of the program, the journey bags will be given to foster care children as far away as Cook County, Bloomington-Normal, and even Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Celebrating its bicentennial year, Justine Fedak, Head of Sponsorships with BMO Harris Bank said  “we really wanted to do something to thank the communities and give back.

“The wishing fountain was a super special way to demonstrate that.”

A team of people both internal and external review 18,000 wishes that BMO Harris has received, Fedak said.

“We were really overwhelmed when we read about Micah Wilson’s wish and the work they were doing to provide the comforts of home to kids in foster care,” she added.

In the Chicago area alone, BMO Harris is donating more than $11 million to 500 local organizations.

— A St. Charles 13-year-old helps foster kids on their journeys —