A class project brought a common goal to four graduate social work students from FSU Panama City: fostering dignity, one child at a time.

Elizabeth Vermette, Kim Gandy, Lauri Tyeryar and Laura Shedlock are collaborating on Project Pick Me Up to give children removed from their homes more than a trash bag to transport their belongings to a new home. The group’s $1,000 fundraising goal should supply the Department of Children and Families with 250 duffle bags, which would give children more dignity as their lives are uprooted, group members said.

“The day a child is removed from their home is traumatic, perhaps one of the most difficult events in their life,” Tyeryar said. “A duffle bag will not make this situation any less difficult; however, a bag allows the child to arrive with some dignity to their new home.”

The bag also could be a way to foster trust and goodwill between the child and social worker, she said.

An average of 36 children enter foster care each month in the 14th Judicial Circuit, which includes Bay, Calhoun, Gulf, Holmes, Jackson and Washington counties. In Bay County, 164 children were removed from their homes to be placed in foster care from April 2014 to March 2015. About 70 percent of those were entering foster care for the first time.

Students in the Social Work in Practice with Groups and Communities (SOW 5324) course for the Master of Social Work program were tasked with working together to solve a problem in the community. Other class projects include aiding the homeless in Bay County, training Tallahassee social work students to address rape awareness and learn self-defense techniques, and supplying feminine products to homeless women in Okaloosa and Walton counties.