Blessing House to kick off start of new facility

People might think of love as something you can't hold in your hand or measure in tangible ways, but if that were true Blessing House wouldn't have to move. But sometimes love and caring and providing emergency shelter or children in crisis just can't be contained in a two-story home and spilling over into another house next door. Following God's commands to care for the least of these, the staff and supporters of Blessing House will celebrate breaking ground Friday for a brand-new facility to be completed by spring. Located nearly across the street from its current location off state Route 57, Blessing House has been planning for this for three years, Executive Director Sister Mary Berigan said. The new Blessing House will triple its size to a 16,700-square-foot building on 2.85 acres purchased from the Cleveland Catholic Diocese on the St. Vincent de Paul Church site in Elyria Township. It will expamd the bed capacity from 10 to 28, with dedicated areas for play separated by age categories and rooms for specialized needs, like physical therapy or supervised visitations. Currently there is no designated space in the county for supervised visitations if it is not a Lorain County Children's Services case, she said. "This is wonderful. We are ready," Berigan said. "The increased need we see, working with our service partners, and looking at our own waiting list, we needed more space to accommodate children and better meet their needs." Last year, for every child Blessing House took in, another child was turned away. The need is especially great for large families — parents and children often don't want to split them up, and want the children to stay together for the children's peace of mind. "We also needed to separate out the kids out to work on developmental milestones with younger kids and give older ones their space. Right now we have one indoor play space for all children, regardless of age so we've got babies learning to crawl and big kids dancing on the Wii all together," she said. The current Blessing House started in a renovated home in Sheffield Township in 2005, becoming the first licensed facility in the state as a crisis children's care center. The idea was hatched in 2001 by Berigan and Donna Humphrey, who both served as guardian ad litems in the Voices for Children advocacy program, in which trained adults serve in children's best interests in cases that end up in court for neglect and abuse cases. The goal was to try to provide families with support to keep them from entering the court system at all. Blessing House began as a place for children to go in a crisis or emergency, a safe place for children to go when parents don't have good options. The agency takes in kids from infants to age 12 who are uprooted because their parent might have a hospital stay, the family might be homeless or there is a domestic violence crisis in the home. The temporary stay allows parents to not lose custody of their children in the event of emergencies. The agency averages 170 children a year. Over the years the house accommodated incoming children and staff, eventually spilling into a garage outbuilding and leasing a home next door for office space. Instead of the need decreasing, the community needs its services more than ever — especially in the midst of the pandemic, Berigan said. A donor paid for the property and to design an efficient flow based on their needs, the staff of Blessing House did what they know best: They got out a box of primary-colored building blocks and moved pieces around to make their design. They took photos of it and presented it to Ron Cocco of Clark and Post Architects, who is overseeing the project. "We said, 'Can you build this?' And he worked with us," Berigan said. The construction phase of the project, to be done by Star Builders Inc., will cost about $2.5 million. So far $1.65 million has been raised. The agency is continuing to solicit donations to build the new facility. Some donors have sponsored entire rooms, which are being done in different themes. Some have sponsored the outdoor play area equipment.Berigan hopes having a new building will ease part of the job that is relentless: Looking at the list of parents asking for help and trying to figure out who take in. "It's never easy to look at that wait list and say 'Where do we go next?' You have to tell yourself, 'OK, a 6- or 7-month-old needs total care, but this 6- or 7-year-old can make a PB and J for themselves. That's our process every day," she said. "Not too long ago we had a little girl here, talking to our trauma specialist and she asked her what was her favorite thing to do at home. She said sleep. Then she said what's your favorite thing to do at Blessing House and she said 'Everything.' Just the impact that has, that she is not content to just sleep here, she wants to do all the crafts and the arts and play outside and in the sand box - that's why we do what we do." By the Hand Foundation is helping to celebrate the groundbreaking by matching donations up to $5,000 made between June 25 and July 1 through its FastScratch for Charity program. For information, visit blessinghouse.org or call (440) 240-1851. Contact Rini Jeffers at rinijeffers@chroniclet.com.