A year ago, an anxious Gail Healy couldn’t wait to welcome children to the Sunshine Shelter on Union Street. A year later, the Natchez shelter, built as temporary, emergency housing for up to 12 children for 45 days at a time, has housed 23 since May.

Now, the shelter director wonders how much longer she can stay open.

&uot;There is an imminent danger that we will close this facility for lack of children,&uot; Healy said.

A blessing of sorts came late this week after an impromptu prayer at a staff lunch, Healy said. &uot;We prayed that God would send us the children who need us,&uot; she said.

The next day four more children in need of a safe haven arrived, joining a chubby-cheeked 1-year-old who had been enjoying the attention of the entire staff for a few days.

Operated by the non-profit Fertile Ground Inc., the Sunshine Shelter project was born in 1998 with a $150,000 donation from Doris Buffett Bryant’s Sunshine Lady Foundation. Trinity Episcopal Church serves as Fertile Ground’s non-profit charter.

The shelter serves Region 5, a 14-county area including Adams County, but can also accept children from around the state. It is one of two shelters in Mississippi exclusively for children ages infant to 12. The shelter receives $55 a day for each child and gets financial help through donations and sales at the SunDay Best thrift store.

&uot;Our purpose as a shelter is to serve as a safe place for a social worker to place a child while they are investigating a more permanent place to put the child,&uot; Healy said.

Healy, the former director of the Guardian Shelter for Battered Women, has seen the cycle of abuse many times. Most often, she said, abusive situations are the result of drug and alcohol abuse, but they can also be a product of simple ignorance of parenting skills.

&uot;(Some parents) don’t know about hygiene, about discipline,&uot; she said, recalling a 5-year-old girl, dirty and thin, who arrived at the shelter last year with her siblings.

After a bath, the girl walked beaming to Healy and said, &uot;Smell my arm. I just love being so clean.&uot;

But the 5-year-old was one of only a few children who have benefitted from the safety of the shelter.

With so few children coming to the emergency shelter over the past 10 months, Healy said she is afraid that children in allegedly abusive situations are being placed with other family members before a suitable background check is performed.

State Department of Human Service statistics show that 214 children, ages infant to 12, were taken into custody by the DHS in Region 5 in 1999. The shelter served 14 children from May to December last year.

It’s a situation Healy hopes can be solved this year by legislation that would require the background checks.

&uot;Background checks are done on all relatives,&uot; said Sylvia Sessions, director of the state DHS Region 5. &uot;At least a tentative background check is done.&uot;

Sessions said social workers often place a child with relatives after the initial check is done and follow up with a more thorough check.

Healy said her fear is that children will be placed with relatives who could also be abusive.

&uot;We know that abuse is intergenerational and systemic,&uot; she said. &uot;It’s a vicious cycle.

&uot;(The system) will abandon these children to a life we don’t know unless we do the background checks.&uot;

Healy estimates thorough background checks could take a maximum of seven days, fulfilling the shelter’s role as an emergency center for abused and neglected children.

&uot;No system is perfect,&uot; said Sessions, adding that &uot;there have not been too many abusive situations&uot; that children have been placed in after being taken from the home.

Sessions said one of her fears is placing children from other counties in a temporary shelter many miles away can hurt them.

&uot;We would have to pull the kids out in the middle of a crisis,&uot; Sessions said.

Still, Sessions said she believes the shelter in Natchez is needed.

&uot;It’s a new shelter,&uot; she said. &uot;I think children will be placed there. It just takes time.

&uot;I believe the shelter would get more children if the age limit was expanded.&uot;

But with limited space as it is, Healy said expanding the age limit would have to mean creating separate wings for the children.

And she said she wants to stop the cycle of abuse where it hurts children first — when they are very young.

&uot;The worst thing I’ve seen is that these kids know they’re not wanted,&uot;&160;Healy said. &uot;They’re filled with fear, which makes them extremely defensive.

&uot;We’ve created several generations of disposable kids.&uot;