Why a trash bin company cares about foster care

Most companies have a founding story that starts with a business plan. Ours starts with a kid taking fifteen minutes to do a two minute job.

We were about to go looking for him. When he finally came back inside we asked what on earth he'd been doing out there, and he said the bin had bugs in it so he'd been rinsing it out. Nobody told him to. It bothered him, and he fixed it.

The next morning he came downstairs and asked if he could go around the neighborhood washing other people's trash bins for money.

Most families would say "sure, buddy" and forget about it by dinner. We almost did.

The part that came before

Our kids came to us through foster care. They arrived together, brothers and sister, all at once, and our house has not been quiet since.

We didn't plan that. God did.

If you have never been near the foster system, here is the part that surprised us most: how often brothers and sisters get separated. Placing one child is hard. Placing three at once is much harder, and the practical solution is often to split them up and hope everyone lands somewhere decent. Kids who have already lost their home lose each other too.

That is the piece we cannot stop thinking about, and it is the reason a trash bin company has a giving program.

What we don't talk about

We will tell you our story all day. We are not going to tell you theirs.

Our kids have histories that belong to them, not to a website, and someday they will decide who gets to know what. Special needs are part of our family's daily life too, and that also stays ours.

So when you see us talk about foster care, it will be about the system, the need, and the families still waiting.

What we're actually doing about it

Starting at launch, one dollar from every bin we clean goes to Christ's Haven for Children in Keller.

They run a neighborhood of homes with houseparents for kids who need somewhere to be, from newborns up to twenty four. Some stay six months. Some stay sixteen years. They take no state or federal funding at all, which means every light they keep on is paid for by people who live around here.

It is about twenty minutes from our route.

We picked them for that reason. National organizations do good work, but we wanted the dollar to land somewhere we could drive to.

Why we live here, and why that matters to a bin company

Northlake, Argyle and Justin are growing fast enough that it can feel like everyone is new. Our family is raising adopted kids in the middle of that, at the same ball fields and the same grocery store as you.

That is also, unglamorously, the business model. We clean bins in a handful of neighborhoods instead of driving all over DFW, which is how the price stays at $19.99. Tight routes, short drives, more time with the bins and less time on 35W.

A company that only works if the neighborhood works is a company that pays attention to the neighborhood.

The line we keep coming back to

"Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ."
Galatians 6:2

It is a big verse for a small job. But that is more or less what this is. Somebody has to clean the thing. It does not have to be you.