By Rita McInerney

There's a wide lawn for running, an intricate play gym for sliding and swinging. There are wild flowers to gather, hay bales to climb and a miniature chapel to hide in. There's even a friendly dog on the scene, a white German shepherd that answers to "Simon."

Two mornings a week, Monday and Thursday, the green space behind Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in Hartwell is alive with children. This is Children's Morning, an ecumenical program begun about four years ago by Georgia Phillips at the First Baptist Church. It happened when she agreed to look after two young children whose mothers were attending a parenting class at that church.

As the program grew, "Miss Georgia," as the children fondly call her, discovered that she wanted to give youngsters from low-income families an opportunity to interact through play and other activities with other children, and introduce them to activities to develop character and skills. For her it's a program of love, based on the words of Jesus in St. Mark's Gospel: "Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs."

"So many of these children don't have a day of fun and laughter," she says while skillfully wheeling the van provided by First Baptist Church around the roads in the Rome section of town. Waiting children hop into the bus as mothers or grandmothers wave them off. Each child is warmly greeted by name. Twin boys usually joining the Thursday group won't be coming this morning. Their grandfather is being buried that day. But, "Miss Georgia" swings by anyway, to express her condolences to the family.

The van loaded with 19 small children and two older children who are helping this morning arrives back at the church around 9:30. Its lively passengers spill out and run to the sturdy play gym, a maze of parallel bars, slide ladder and chinning bars built by Terry Philips, Georgia's husband.

She calls them to assemble around the tall flagpole in front of the church for the morning raising of the flag. But where is "Father Pat," (Father Patrick McCormick, pastor of Sacred Heart) who usually leads this ritual? She decides not to wait and with the help of a few of the bigger boys, the large "Stars and Stripes" is raised amid admonitions in childish voices of "don't let it touch the ground."

After the pledge of allegiance is vigorously recited, the children regroup for a walk around the large field below the lawn. They will collect wild flowers for bouquets to carry home to mothers and grandmothers. "Miss Georgia" has already filled several pitchers with bright pink and red annuals from the church's cross-shaped garden. This plot not only provides altar flowers for Sacred Heart but for the other churches of Hartwell, another facet of the ecumenism that thrives in the town near the huge lake.

Shouts go up from the children as they spot their good companions, Father Pat and Simon on the upper lawn. Some hurry to run with the gentle dog. Simon, happy to be free of the confines of his fenced yard, romps among them avoiding collisions so agilely that the spectator senses he is well aware of his size advantage.

'Miss Georgia" keeps all the children under her wing. She waits for the stragglers and coaxes the loner into the group, offers the comfort of her arms to little boys with scraped elbows or pride wounded in a fall off the little red wagon. She has enthusiastic praise for a girl's progress on the parallel bars and words of caution for the trio circling too fast in the tire swing.

When the heat of the humid morning begins to slow the tots, she cools them off with a crayon and paper session in the air-conditioned church hall. Some are content to draw quietly, a few head for the action on rocking horses.

Soon it's outside again and a snack at the redwood tables under the pecan tree. Small hands reach for sandwiches, cookies and apple juice being handed out by Mattie, the faithful helper described as "a saint," and her daughter Tina, who is helping that morning. Connie and Joe Sergio, First Baptist volunteers, cut the watermelon, treat for the day.

The sprinkler is going by the time the watermelon is nothing but seeds in the grass. Then children shed sneakers and sandals and cool off (rinse off too) under the spray. Tentative at first, they soon frolic in the cool water with all the joy of more pampered tots at the beach. When spray-time ends they skip off for a last gambol over the play gym, or help "Miss Georgia" fix bouquets to take home. One little boy, with an instinct for impartiality, tugs her cotton skirt while he says he has two grandmothers to remember with flowers.

Now it is noon, soon time to go home. Reluctant girls and boys reclaim sneakers from under the pecan tree and are shepherded back to the waiting van.

The program is year-round with a different group of two- to five-year-olds coming on Monday. In addition to help from Sacred Heart where she says Father McCormick gave her "total welcome" when she asked to hold the mornings there in March, 1985, food, funds and volunteers are generously budgeted by the mission groups from the Baptist and Presbyterian congregations.

When rain or cold keeps the children indoors, she keeps them busy with art, stories and aerobics to a "Mousercize" tape. Or they will go to work off energy in the gym at First Baptist. They take excursions to dairy farms, picnic and hike along the creek, and visit the farm where Georgia and Terry Philips live with their four sons and daughter, ages seven to 18. There they can ride the ponies or "Hubie," a small Sicilian donkey.

"Miss Georgia" visits the children's homes to see if they are keeping up with the Bible stories supplied by the Presbyterian church and to talk with the mothers. She is alert to special needs -- for food, clothing or furniture -- that she will pass on to Father McCormick. He helps through parish resources or with a note to the Clothes Closet, the ecumenical thrift shop across the road. Sacred Heart has a "Giving Tree" laden with gifts for the children at Christmas, and the other churches are just as generous with gifts and food at holiday time.

There is, Georgia Philips says, "The most wonderful feeling of giving; everybody giving to everybody else." Her own giving, she admits, is repaid with the love she gets from her Monday and Thursday children.

The program that she started with two children and which now brightens the lives of more than 40, helped lead her and three of her children to the Catholic faith. This past Easter they were among 12 new Catholics welcomed at Sacred Heart.