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By Rita McInerney
Some of Atlanta’s homeless children have a new daytime home.
This new refuge is located on the ground floor of the education
building at North Avenue Presbyterian Church, 607 Peachtree St. The new space
includes two large rooms, one for eating, activities and play, the other
equipped with five cribs and mats for naps; a compact kitchen, and a large
bathroom with laundry facilities. There is access to a gym and new playground
constructed by a group of Eagle Scouts.
Atlanta Children’s Shelter Inc., a new non-profit
corporation, was launched with a $100,000 grant from the Atlanta Junior League.
However, substantial additional support will be required to allow the shelter
to operate through its first year. For this reason a major campaign for funding
is underway throughout the Atlanta religious community. Already, one church has
offered a challenge grant of $100,000 to the shelter if an additional $500,000
can be raised from other churches. The Archdiocese of Atlanta, joining in the
effort, has committed $12,500 to the shelter for the coming year.
The shelter officially opened July 1 after several months of
planning. It is a successor to the children’s shelter operated during the
winter of 1983-84 at All Saints Episcopal Church, 634 W. Peachtree St., and
last year at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, 48 Martin Luther King
Jr., Drive. Last year, the Atlanta Junior League contributed $15,000 toward
expenses of the shelter in the basement of the shrine.
The need is great, since it is estimated that there are 500
children among the 5,000 homeless people in the city. The new shelter can
accommodate 30.
Laurie Downs, executive director, explained the concept of the new
shelter: “We will be working more closely with the children and the
mothers, not just warehousing.” There will be a staff social worker
available to work with the mothers. Group therapy is planned as one approach to
helping these women, most of whom live between day and night shelters. Many of
them are battered women without jobs, without hope.
“They need a lot of support to get back on their feet,”
Ms. Downs said. “We will give them the best chance possible. I see most of
these mothers willing to change, not wanting to be where they are.”
Twenty-five percent of them, she estimated, are employed. Many others are
seeking jobs, a frustrating task made harder in the reality of shelter
existence.
Their children, while getting used to a new space, have two good
friends, Lavonia Armour and Val McGruder, to lend the “TLC” most
infants and toddlers enjoy around the clock. The two women provided the
maternal presence while the shelter was in the Shrine basement. They will be
joined by another childcare worker next month.
Along with play, lunch, nap and snack, an enrichment program
– art, music, storytelling and some pre-school learning – will
enliven the hours. “The best we can do is enrich their days and stimulate
their minds,” Ms. Downs, who plays guitar and sings, said. Junior League
volunteers will assist her.
The day for the children at the shelter begins with singing, after
which the youngsters get a chance to tell who they are. When weather permits
they play outside on the playground. “We try to do lots of things to fill
the morning,” said Ms. Downs, a single woman who “all of a sudden has
29 children” to love. Before starting the director’s job May 1 she
worked in the mental health field for 10 years. Most recently she was director
of a Gwinnett County home for schizophrenic women. The home was one of the
first in Georgia.
After lunch, purchased from Central Presbyterian Church at one
dollar per meal, the children take naps in the large room at the end of the
hall furnished with cribs, playpen and with floor space for 30 mats. Here in
the darkened room, shades drawn, they sleep peacefully for a few hours. The
silence is occasionally broken when a big sister takes a younger sibling to the
bathroom, or when an infant wakes and cries for attention.
Little Tiffany, a one-year-old enchanter, awakens early and has
some quality time with Ms. Downs who cuddles her in the rocking chair. Soon,
sleepy-eyed children straggle into the playroom where Ms. Armour and Ms.
McGruder are cutting up apples for their mid-afternoon snack.
There are brothers and sisters and one family of five sisters and
a brother. There is protectiveness by older girls for their younger brothers or
sisters and a soberness about all of them, except the babies. The tiniest one
on hand can be a two-month old infant the oldest, a 12-year-old girl.
Such children, Ms, Downs said, living between the shelters and the
streets, are easy targets. One of the aims of the shelter program is to teach
the youngsters how to be alert to those who would sexually abuse them, to teach
them how to say “No.”
The director is hopeful that the shelter, when funds are assured
and the program is in full swing, will serve as a model for other shelters.
The $100,000 gift from the Junior League, she explained, was a
gift marking the group’s 70th anniversary. The league also
pledged to supply 50 volunteers who will assist the shelter staff in caring for
the physical needs of the children and be primarily responsible for the
enrichment activities.
League member Lynn Merrill heads the 25-member board of directors
which directs the nonprofit corporation. Seven committees have been set up to
serve the shelter and an advisory board which includes several activists for
the homeless, has been named.
The League is looking for support from the entire religious
community. Nancy McGuirk is chairman of the challenging fund drive and Mr. and
Mrs. Ed Schweers are group leaders for the Catholic community. Anyone wishing
to help may call the Schweers at 233-0466 |
