Post by emily on Mar 12, 2007 17:59:31 GMT -5
The Magnolia Street Shelter is located on South Monroe, at the intersection of Monroe and Magnolia. It is a 2 story brick building, occupying half a city block, unassuming and growing faintly dingy. Down one wall is a handpainted mural.
Its basement holds an industrial kitchen, stocked with secondhand equipment picked up on the cheap from closings and auctions around town, and long tables with benches. It also houses the shower rooms, and locker facilities, with washer and dryer tucked in a nook in between.
The main floor is basically one big room, save for Maggie's office, tucked to one side. The room holds an assortment of second hand couches, tables, and chairs, with a television in one corner that has a couple of the latest game systems hooked up to it. The kids have a completely independent Lord of the Flies system set up for ownership of the remote. There are bookshelves stuffed with practically anything that the kids could drag home for the last few years, and a toy chest in one corner. (Ask me about Operation Kringle!) There's also a whiteboard hung on one wall, and a cart with school supplies and textbooks. A sliding glass door leads out to the playground, which sits on the remaining half of the block. Under an overhang, there are always a couple of bicycles parked, as well as an engine in a constant state of being broken up or down. It has a basketball goal, a swingset/jungle gym combo, and a lot of imagination. There's a 10 foot wooden fence surrounding it, more for the kids' privacy than for their protection.
Maggie's office is about what you'd expect; surplus desk and chair, a file cabinet with a stout lock, the shelter's only phone, and its suffused with the scent of weariness.
The top floor of the shelter holds a storage closet, stuffed to the gills with supplies, food, clothes, and all the little incidentals required to make this place run. There's a small bathroom, and the rest of the floor is given over to the dormitory, where all the kids sleep. There are over a dozen bunk beds of solid construction, each bears the legacy of some handy former tenant, who built some shelves into the walls on either side of each bed. Each kid has their own space, and stores their own mementos, favored toys, childhood treasures there, and there are two footlockers under each set of beds for clothes and such. There's room for roughly 30 kids, although the number tends to hover at roughly 20-25.
In terms of defensibility, the shelter's only real defenses are the thickness of the front and back doors (both of which open onto the main room) and bars on the windows. Its real degree of security comes from Maggie and Rex, and it's proximity to the caern (it is only about a mile away and a straight shot from the Ride and the Blue Moon). There are two other individuals who work at the shelter, some of Maggie's original success stories. Neither of them live there, but there's a rotating system of who spends the night there, with Maggie, Wallace, and Esperanza splitting the time.
Wallace is a former banger, and posesses a teaching license so that he can home school the kids that, well, can't seem to get along with the local schools. If Maggie is the strong hand on the tiller of the Shelter, Esperanza, her old friend, is the place's warm heart, she makes sure that everyone has food in their bellies.
The thing to remember about the shelter is that it's a miracle it exists at all, in this city, at this time. It gets some state money, some city funds, and has a large number of, ahem, concerned citizens who make substantial donations. It receives food from Second Harvest and repairs from anyone who stops by. There are several dozen young people in Tallahassee and the surrounding area who have been recipients of the shelter's hospitality at some point in the past, and the community remembers. The place satisfies health department regulations by having a LPN who comes by to administer vaccinations and check on the kids, and there are parole officers in the juvie justice system who try to place a few of their charges there, noting that kids who stay there tend to stay off the street longer, in school more, and out of the drug or prostitution racket a little more.
Maggie does make an effort to catch Kin and Cubs (or anyone who has the blood and the liklihood of becoming such) who have fallen through the system. She is extremely stern, but fair, and doesn't put up with anything that might endanger the health of the kids. Right now, there are a few possible future cubs of a variety of ages living under that roof.
Its basement holds an industrial kitchen, stocked with secondhand equipment picked up on the cheap from closings and auctions around town, and long tables with benches. It also houses the shower rooms, and locker facilities, with washer and dryer tucked in a nook in between.
The main floor is basically one big room, save for Maggie's office, tucked to one side. The room holds an assortment of second hand couches, tables, and chairs, with a television in one corner that has a couple of the latest game systems hooked up to it. The kids have a completely independent Lord of the Flies system set up for ownership of the remote. There are bookshelves stuffed with practically anything that the kids could drag home for the last few years, and a toy chest in one corner. (Ask me about Operation Kringle!) There's also a whiteboard hung on one wall, and a cart with school supplies and textbooks. A sliding glass door leads out to the playground, which sits on the remaining half of the block. Under an overhang, there are always a couple of bicycles parked, as well as an engine in a constant state of being broken up or down. It has a basketball goal, a swingset/jungle gym combo, and a lot of imagination. There's a 10 foot wooden fence surrounding it, more for the kids' privacy than for their protection.
Maggie's office is about what you'd expect; surplus desk and chair, a file cabinet with a stout lock, the shelter's only phone, and its suffused with the scent of weariness.
The top floor of the shelter holds a storage closet, stuffed to the gills with supplies, food, clothes, and all the little incidentals required to make this place run. There's a small bathroom, and the rest of the floor is given over to the dormitory, where all the kids sleep. There are over a dozen bunk beds of solid construction, each bears the legacy of some handy former tenant, who built some shelves into the walls on either side of each bed. Each kid has their own space, and stores their own mementos, favored toys, childhood treasures there, and there are two footlockers under each set of beds for clothes and such. There's room for roughly 30 kids, although the number tends to hover at roughly 20-25.
In terms of defensibility, the shelter's only real defenses are the thickness of the front and back doors (both of which open onto the main room) and bars on the windows. Its real degree of security comes from Maggie and Rex, and it's proximity to the caern (it is only about a mile away and a straight shot from the Ride and the Blue Moon). There are two other individuals who work at the shelter, some of Maggie's original success stories. Neither of them live there, but there's a rotating system of who spends the night there, with Maggie, Wallace, and Esperanza splitting the time.
Wallace is a former banger, and posesses a teaching license so that he can home school the kids that, well, can't seem to get along with the local schools. If Maggie is the strong hand on the tiller of the Shelter, Esperanza, her old friend, is the place's warm heart, she makes sure that everyone has food in their bellies.
The thing to remember about the shelter is that it's a miracle it exists at all, in this city, at this time. It gets some state money, some city funds, and has a large number of, ahem, concerned citizens who make substantial donations. It receives food from Second Harvest and repairs from anyone who stops by. There are several dozen young people in Tallahassee and the surrounding area who have been recipients of the shelter's hospitality at some point in the past, and the community remembers. The place satisfies health department regulations by having a LPN who comes by to administer vaccinations and check on the kids, and there are parole officers in the juvie justice system who try to place a few of their charges there, noting that kids who stay there tend to stay off the street longer, in school more, and out of the drug or prostitution racket a little more.
Maggie does make an effort to catch Kin and Cubs (or anyone who has the blood and the liklihood of becoming such) who have fallen through the system. She is extremely stern, but fair, and doesn't put up with anything that might endanger the health of the kids. Right now, there are a few possible future cubs of a variety of ages living under that roof.