House of Refuge

On Saturday February 14th, my mom and I went to the House of Refuge, which is located right next to ASU Poly. My mom is a part of Mesa Leadership in which they go to classes and do different activities. On Saturday, her class participated in their class projects. This took place at the House of Refuge, which is essentially a half way house those who are in need of housing. They can stay here up to two years.
HRE consists of 88 two-bedroom homes and a Chapel/annex all located in a community setting. On any given day approximately 100 adults and 150 children call House of Refuge "home". Because greater than 50% of our residents come from shelters, this will often be the first safe home some children will have experienced. (from the website)

The morning started out with unloading a Bashas truck full of stuff that was donated to them. They have a ton of new school supplies, shampoo, all kinds of food, and many other things. Afterwards, all of the families were invited to come and participate in different activities.

They had a bouncing house, arts and crafts, and cookie decorating. They also had a football, basketball, and a volleyball for the kids to play with. The boys started a game and pretty soon, many were involved.

Some ASU cheerleaders came to join the party and had fun making cards, decorating cookies, and hanging out with the kids. They cheered for the football game and even had some of the little girls take turns with their pom poms and cheer too.

The kids were so cute and it was so much fun to watch them enjoy the activites and people around them.

I was supposed to be there to take family pictures if any families chose to do so, but no families came so I just walked around taking pictues of the kids doing the different activities.

This was so much fun because this is the type of thing I love to do. It was also fun because I got to spend the day with my mom and her crazy classmates.