What are CUB's?

A Comfort U Bag, CUB for short, is a carefully prepared backpack given to children and teens entering the foster care system. These bags contain essential and comforting items suitable for different age groups and diverse needs. Contents include basic necessities, personal care items, and comforting objects like sunggly blankets, stuffed animals, books, and toys.

Making a difference…

We work with local authorities to ensure inclusivity; tailoring bags to meet the cultural, emotional, and individual needs of children from different backgrounds, gender and ages. We fundraise for the backpacks and then anyone can ‘adopt a CUB’ which involves taking a backpack and filling it using a content list which has been approved by Children Services. Although the content is standard and items must be new to preserve the dignity of the recipient, our adopters have the autonomy to choose brands and retailers.

The average cost of a bag and all contents is £40- £50.
Completed CUBs are delivered to Children Services and are then placed with children as they transition into care.

Get involved & support us

The CUB creation process

Here you can see the process we follow at CUBs to provide Swindon and Wiltshire with bags for children and young people.

Fundraising

As a team, we organise fundraising events throughout the year, primarily focusing on our established 'Adopt a CUB' campaign which is run once a year. Supporters have the option of donating items for our bags through our Amazon Wishlist or 'Adopting a CUB' by taking a backpack and content list, purchasing items, filling the backpack, and returning it to us for quality checking. This process ensures every backpack is thoughtfully prepared to address the diverse needs of the children and teens we support.

Our supporters have also raised and donated money to CUBs through their own fundraising events such as running a marathon and other sponsored activities and with this, we purchase the items we need.

In 2025, we'll be working with Swindon Borough Council to trial a new model, 'tailor-made CUBs', which would allow Children's Services to make up the bags themselves to suit the individual children, with the standard items provided by CUBs. This more bespoke approach would enchance the sense of dignity and respect these children deserve.

Support us

Purchase & Collection

As a team we sort and organise donated items or use monetary donations to purchase new stock.

Packing Parties

Volunteers join 'Packing Parties' to assemble the backpacks, ensuring each one is unique, high-quality, and in line with our approved list of items.

Our trial with Swindon will see them storing the items locally, with the Social Workers filling the bag themselves to suit the children in their care.

Distribution to the children

We have regular contact with Swindon and Wiltshire Council to gauge the number of backpacks they need throughout the year. Once we've packed the bags at our Packing Parties we're then in a position to distribute backpacks to Swindon and Wiltshire when needed, and they ensure every child going into foster care receives a backpack.

As agreed with Swindon, from 2025, they will receive items in bulk, including the number of backpacks needed, rather than made-up bags.