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On a cold Wednesday evening in one of Boston’s troubled neighborhoods, Amy Kelleher, 30, of West Roxbury arrived for her weekly visit to a house with a dark front porch on a street with no street sign.
Inside the house, the voices of young children resounded through the well-lit hall that leads to a cozy room fitted out with toys and books and tiny blue chairs. Kelleher sat on a large beanbag cushion, and before long, the kids piled on. Two girls with black braids popping out over their heads came for a hug and sat on her lap, a little blonde girl plopped onto the cushion, and nearby, a 5-year-old boy in a Celtics jersey rolled a tow truck back and forth.
"Can you play with me?" asked the boy. "I want someone to play with me."
"Let’s build a garage for your trucks with the blocks," said Kelleher.
"Help me build it," he said, taking bright-colored alphabet blocks down from a shelf.
Kelleher is one of several PALs, or Playspace Activity Leaders, at the shelter. Since March, she has been volunteering a few hours a week to play with ten to twenty children up to 6 years old who live with their mothers in a transitional living program for victims of domestic violence. The location and name of the shelter, as well as the names of the children, cannot be disclosed for safety purposes.
Originally from Indiana, Kelleher moved to West Roxbury in January and works as a technical recruiter for Overture Partners in Needham. She wanted to get involved with some community service and heard about Horizons for Homeless Children from a colleague. After a workshop training session with child experts and teachers, she started doing a weekly shift. The commitment is a minimum of six months, but Kelleher said she sees no reason to stop.
"I’ve had really frustrating days at work, but if I go to the shelter on Wednesdays, it’s like a stress reliever," said Kelleher. "It’s a happy, happy time, the kids smile when they see you, and they’re a joy to spend time with."
Throughout the evening, the children approached Kelleher and the two other adult volunteers with books, asking to be read to, asking to be held, and showing equal affection even to new visitors.
"I didn’t expect the kids to be as happy as they are," said Kelleher. "Because of everything they’ve been through, the kids have come together in a big family, and they help each other. There’s definitely a bond between them."
Horizons for Homeless Children has trained more than 8,000 volunteers as PALs to help homeless children since 1990. The Playspace program is a statewide effort in which volunteers sign up for one two-hour shift a week. There are currently 1,000 active volunteers in Massachusetts who play with more than 2,000 children each week. The 300 square foot room where Kelleher works is one of 140 Playspaces around the state erected by Horizons for Homeless Children. Each space costs around $5,000 to furnish, and is built to give children a place to play, and to challenge children physically and creatively, encouraging them to use their imaginations.
Almost all of the Playspaces have been donated. "We’ve been really fortunate in securing sponsorship for all of our Playspaces," said Colette O’Neill, spokesperson for Horizons for Homeless Children.
According to statistics from Horizons for Homeless Children, there are probably 96,000 homeless children in Massachusetts. Over 1,200 families stay in publicly funded family shelters in Massachusetts on any given night. Within these families, there are 1,200 children under the age of five.
In the course of the evening, the kids got worked up to a pitch of excitement. Reading books and solving puzzles turned to scampering, loud chatter and laughter, and finally the crash and boom of a toy box onto the floor. But just before chaos broke loose, it was clean- up time.
"It goes so fast," said the boy in the Celtics shirt.
After clean-up, the kids gathered in another room for "snack and roll" time. There was a chart with a list of things that should have been accomplished, which the volunteers and children ticked off together. First on the list was "Be the best I can be." The kids said they thought they had done that.
Those interested in volunteering with Horizons for Homeless Children may visit www.horizonsforhomelesschildren.org or call 800.560.7702. The next set of volunteer training sessions will be on Monday, December 3rd and Tuesday, December 4th from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Registration begins at 5:30 p.m. at the Boston Public Library. For more information, call 617.445.1480.
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