the Emergency Shelter

I'm a little late posting, but since I was sick all last week, I had a lot of laundry and a little bit of cleaning to catch up on....not to mention go back to work! This past Saturday, Eddie and I spent some time with five foster kids that are all currently at an emergency children's shelter. If I didn't know better, I would say it's a great place to live, but I do. I know that the kids staying here have either JUST been taken from their parents (within the last 90 days), or they have currently been sent back from a foster home. I guess there could be other reasons why these kids are here, but the five kids we met on Saturday were there for those reasons.

I owe a huge thank you to the ladies running the shelter for taking us in LAST MINUTE and letting us get some of our hours. They really KNEW what they were doing, and from the looks of things, they ran a tight ship. The shelter has been up and running since the early 80's. It was started by a nurse that had been taking in foster kids when the police or CPS (did CPS even exist in the 80's??) needed an emergency placement. It was kind of cool to hear the history of the shelter. There are live-in parents that are ALWAYS at the home, and then they have other helpers and volunteers that come in throughout the week, some staying the night. We were told that they had been placed with as many as 22 children at one time. YIKES!! The home has a boys wing and a girls wing. Each room has a closet, two beds with storage, a dresser? and an adjoining jack and jill bathroom. The hallway was lined with linen/storage closets (can you say jealous?!?). There are two living/play areas with several couches and big screen tv's. SO. MANY. TOYS. The kitchen was my dream kitchen minus some of the stainless steel. They have a large eat-in area w/a table that could fit the Duggar family. :) Three industrial sized refrigerators, a walk-in freezer, a pantry the size of my closet, two side pantries in the kitchen, and tons and tons of cabinet space. Oh, and two gas stove/ovens that I now covet. The back yard is mostly concrete, which is great for playing basketball and riding bikes. They have two large, covered sand boxes, bike rack, foosball table, air hockey table, a swing set for big kids, a swing set for babies, a jungle gym w/slide, and a basketball court. Sounds like everyone's dream home, doesn't it? Everyone's dream home but these kiddos. :(

I don't really want to say much about the kids because they were great and anything other than that would be giving out too much information. They were a lot of fun to hang out with, though I missed spending time with our three kids while Daddy was off work and home for the weekend. A couple of the kids were waiting on a relative to finish up some paperwork to take custody, but a sibling group was currently in the shelter because their NINTH foster placement had just brought them back. In the time we spent with them, I could see how they could get into a lot of trouble (fought a lot, serious sibling rivalry), but really? NINE foster homes??? So sad! (Before you start thinking that, there are a lot of reasons we COULDN'T take them, none of which I'll get into!)

So, I've lost count of how many hours we have left to finish up. We have another visit scheduled with the Joneses that I am looking forward to this weekend! We still need to get our finger prints done, so that is next on the list. I've heard things about FBI finger prints from some of the docs I work for, so not looking forward to the "what if's" with that, but I'll let you know how it goes once we're done!

TO DO LIST


double locks for meds
lock for ammo box
sheets for bunk beds
FBI finger prints
MORE supervision hours
emergency kit
re-schedule 4th and FINAL! home study
(I know there has to be more, but can't think of anything right now!)