Blessing House getting ready to move back into facility after water damage repairs

ELYRIA — The staff at Blessing House is busy this week, unpacking. After months of waiting, they are finally moving stacks of storybooks, furniture and 160 bags of freshly laundered children's clothes back into the Olivet Avenue facility. A massive water leak Feb. 10 forced an evacuation of children and staff, and the home — a crisis care center for children up to age 12 — has been closed since for major repairs. There were nine children and three night staff members at Blessing House that night, when a fire suppression system in one of the front administration offices broke at 2 a.m., said Sister Mary Bernigan, executive director. "I got an alarm on my phone that said we had low pressure in our system, so I was already on my way here when one of my staff called me and said water was coming into the building," she said. Firefighters were already there when she arrived and staff had gotten the children safely to the back of the building. "By the time we could get water cut off from the street, it was already traveling through the building. It just gushed in and kept coming and coming," she said. "The firefighters, trying to find the source, brought me to the office door and said unlock it but don't open it. And when they did a big rush of water came out." The 16,700-plus-square-foot building that opened five years ago needed new flooring, new paint and some new furniture. Parts of the lower walls had to be removed to mitigate the water damage. The work was estimated to take six months, but Bernigan said if the home passes final inspections by township and state officials in the next few weeks, children could once again move back in by the end of this month — two months earlier than expected. In the meantime, children served by the Blessing House were temporarily moved over to its original location on Grove Avenue in Lorain, just a few blocks away. The administrative staff still worked at the Olivet site throughout the renovations. The Olivet house is licensed to serve up to 20 children at a time, while the Grove site only has room for 10. The temporary loss of space meant Blessing House did have to turn away children; Bernigan said they made referrals in the meantime to Providence House, Safe Families and Zellie's Home, other organizations that do similar work. "The irony is, in the last year we had discussed at a board meeting getting rid of the old building," Bernigan said. "And I had said we need to keep it in case of an emergency, if we ever needed to evacuate, where would we go? And somebody said 'What are the chances of that?' And then this happened, and I tell you I was so grateful we had it." The night of the evacuation, staff immediately went into care mode, getting kids from their rooms to the cubby area to collect outerwear and clothes and get to the Grove Avenue home. "Of course they were all excited because of the firemen," Bernigan said, laughing. "One little girl, a kindergartner, had her boots on because it was cold outside and she was just jumping up and down through the water going through the garage, saying 'My mommy never lets me do this at home!'" For the adults, however, the past few months brought a new meaning to the job they've been doing for the past 25 years. Blessing House is the only children's crisis shelter in Lorain County, serving as a place where families can turn for help before being involved in the child welfare system. It's brought a different perspective to those who've grown so accustomed to tending to the needs of others in crisis to find themselves in crisis. "I think being in a situation where you've experienced some of the things our families go through — the unexpected loss, the grieving, the — I don't want to say panic because there wasn't panic, but the 'Oh my, what are we going to do now?' feeling, experiencing that for ourselves is going to impact the way we do things moving forward. Because we've done it too," said Donna Humphrey, director of development and co-founder of Blessing House. "That first day, one of the guys from the water mitigation teams kept asking us, 'Are you guys OK?' And he'd come back and ask us again, a few times. He said, 'You're all very calm and usually when we come into these situations people are either so mad they're swearing at us or in the corner crying,'" Bernigan said. "I think it's because of all the trauma we deal with. We knew what we had to do, because of trauma. We went out and bought matching boots to get through the water." Insurance will cover their losses, but what they cannot recover is priceless. It's the handprints. Small handprints, dipped in paint, made whenever a child comes to Blessing House, are a tradition here. Rows of colorful prints on the walls are the first things to greet visitors when you step through the doors. The flood took more than 150 of them, removed when parts of the playroom's walls had to be replaced. "The whole bottom wall is now blank," Bernigan said. "That was our biggest loss. We know who they are. We know whose handprints are missing." They plan to make efforts to re-create the handprints, but they know it may not be possible. Some kids have moved far away. And some of the prints were taken four years away — the tiny prints will now be big hands. It was a visceral reminder to the staff of the losses many of their families experience before coming to their door. "I think it's just given us a better appreciation for families that lose their home and get evicted or kids who come home from school and their stuff is on the curb. For kids, that's traumatic, for their favorite doll or their Superman. I think that is one of the bigger lessons for us. That gives us a bigger perspective on that," Bernigan said. Blessing House plans to host a community open house to be announced on its Facebook page when it officially reopens.