Plans to open an additional Missoula shelter for children lacking proper care at home got a boost from St. Joseph Elementary School fifth-graders who produced a cookbook, sold it and donated the money.

Book sales by the two fifth-grade classes at the diocesan school in Missoula generated about $670 for Watson Children’s Shelter. The present Watson shelter does not have room for all of the children needing care, and a second shelter is being built. Executive Director Fran Albrecht, the mother of two children at St. Joseph, recently gave the fifth-graders a look at the construction project.

The first thing I saw when I walked in was the fireplace,” St. Joseph student Jack Ellinghouse wrote in a group paper. “A fireplace in a home is like a mug of hot chocolate after playing in the snow on a bright winter day. It warms up your heart. I think the children being housed at the new Watson Children’s Shelter will feel the same.”

Watson, founded in 1977, receives western Montana children removed from conditions of abuse, neglect, abandonment or family crisis. Children stay an average of 45 days at a shelter that accommodates 16. Last year, Watson received 130 applications for care and turned away 42, for lack of space and resources.

“A typical day at the shelter is to go to school, come home, do homework and then watch TV or play outside,” St. Joseph fifthgrader Kellen Round wrote in the paper titled “Fifth Graders at SJS Raise Cash for Watson Children’s Shelter.”

“On special days, they may celebrate a birthday,” Kellen wrote. “The shelter tries to make sure they feel at home.”

Producing the cookbook, selling it and giving away the money was part of a multidimensional lesson that had the children putting Catholic social teaching into practice, and speaking in front of peers, said Katie Hogan, joined by fellow fifth-grade teacher Jodi Hunt in guiding the project.

“Each child picked a favorite recipe from home and put it together in a how-to article, and had to demonstrate (the food preparation) in front of the class, kind of like a 4-H demonstration,” Hogan said.

Watson’s Fran Albrecht said she was touched by the fifthgraders’ compassion and concern for “children their same age who are not as fortunate.”

The shelter is named for the late Janice Watson, whose Watson’s Receiving Home previously cared for children taken there by police and state child-protection workers. Sources of funding for Watson Children’s Shelter include the Montana Department of Health and Human Services, United Way, Missoula County and private donations.

“When kids are brought into the shelter, they receive a tub of belongings that is theirs to keep when they leave,” the fifth-graders wrote. “Items in the tub include five outfits, socks, underwear, a quilt, a few toys and a stuffed animal to snuggle with at night.” The children have arrived in need of “safety, care and hope,” the students wrote.

They said the new shelter will have 16 bedrooms, each with two beds, plus separate rooms for activities such as art, and a backyard with basketball hoops, a bicycle track and “a huge grassy area for play.” An openhouse celebration is planned for June 4-6.

More information about Watson is on the Web at www.watsonchildrensshelter.org.


Published in The Montana Catholic Online, Volume 26, No. 4, April 16, 2010.