Expanded childcare helps the Mission serve homeless families
It’s Thursday morning, and the Mission’s Child Care Center is buzzing.
CeCe Webster gathers kids on a rug and reads from a children’s Bible. She and Children’s Coordinator Carmen Jackson have been walking the kids through the book of Genesis. Today they’re on the story of how God called Abraham. CeCe looks up from the book.
“Would you take all of your stuff and go to a place you know nothing about?”
For these kids, the question isn’t hypothetical. They’re staying in the Women’s Crisis Center with their moms, who get to use those hours to work with Mission staff on finding housing, jobs … and hope.
The kids move to a craft table for the morning’s assignment: Draw a picture of Abraham and glue on cotton balls for his beard.
“Abraham Lincoln?” one of the kids asks.
“Not Lincoln,” CeCe says, chuckling. “But do you know who Abraham Lincoln was?”
“He was one of the mayors of our country,” says Daniel, who’s 8.
“Was he a president?” asks Josalyn, also 8.
“Yes! Good!”
That question solved, the kids set to work on their drawings of Abraham not-Lincoln.
“I want to draw his wife, too,” Josalyn says.
“How did you know he had a wife?” CeCe asks. “Have you heard this story before?”
CeCe tells the kids to write their names on their works of art. Alena, 10, writes hers in beautiful cursive, then turns to Daniel, her brother. “Pound it!” she says. He gives her the obligatory fist bump.
Expanded Care
The six kids, ages 2 to 10, all arrived with their moms just before 8:30 a.m. That’s a fairly average number of kids for a day. Normally during the academic year things tend to skew younger as the older kids attend school. Today is one of the last school days of the year, but for various family reasons the four older kids are here instead.
Child care was always part of the plan for Pitney Place, which opened in 2016 as the Mission’s center for homeless women and children. It hosts both the Women’s Crisis Center and the Women’s Life Recovery Program. For the past several years, the Mission has partnered with the YMCA of Rock River Valley, which provided child care staff at the Mission for two hours a day. Now, with the Mission employing its own child care staff, the center can be open longer—Mondays through Thursdays 8:30 to 11, then again from noon to 2 (the kids join their moms for lunch).
“It relieves a lot of pressure on the moms,” says Leona Tennin, Homeless Services Supervisor. “A lot of our moms who come in want a job, but the childcare cost alone is enough to make them feel a little bit hopeless. So when they come in and Carmen is so welcoming with the children, it gives them great peace of mind to know at least that part of it is taken care of, so they don’t have to be so stressed out about it.”
A recent grant to the Mission from the Kjellstrom Family Foundation is providing a long list of new items for the room— activities and fixtures specifically created for kids’ educational, sensory, emotional and social development.
Not knowing what each day’s mix of kids will look like, Carmen prepares lessons, activities and crafts for ages 0 to 3, 3 to 5 and school age. The eventual plan is for her to also teach a parenting class for moms.
“Hopefully that will alleviate some stress for them,” Leona says. “Sometimes they just don’t know what to do, or they’re overwhelmed.”
A Safe Place
Carmen has worked in childcare for more than 10 years, but her Mission role is new. She never knows exactly what a child has been going through when they arrive—the trauma of homelessness can be severe—but she wants them to feel safe and hopeful that their lives are moving in a good direction.
“My mindset is that when they come here, we give them all the love and the support and the nurturing that they need. I love to teach. Children are eager to learn, and they want to have fun while they’re learning. I just love to help them with their development. We want to implement all the learning activities we can to keep them ready for school.”
Her new role has already been a personal blessing, too.
“Coming home at the end of the day, it’s awesome,” she says. “Because I don’t feel stressed. This is a place where I can pray. A lot of daycares that I’ve worked at, you can’t mention Jesus or God or anything of that sort. Here, I am able to call on the name of Jesus. It’s awesome that I’m able to practice my faith here.”
