This is the fourth in a series of stories highlighting charitable giving and the agencies in need in the Miss-Lou.

NATCHEZ — Over the course of the last 10 years, the Sunshine Children’s Center has helped more than 700 children, and that help has worked its way through the community.

“It has gotten to where I can’t walk into Walmart without someone throwing their arms around me and hugging me,” Sunshine Children’s Center Director Matilda Stephens said.

One of two local organizations operated by Fertile Ground, Inc., the Sunshine Children’s Center provides temporary care for abused and neglected children while they wait to be placed in a more permanent home.

While the children are housed there, the shelter serves as a diagnostic and evaluation center.

“We do a lot of assessing and crisis counseling,” Stephens said.

“Almost all of the children over 12 need further treatment.”

The children at Sunshine Center serves range in age from newborn to 18 years old, and nine are currently housed there, though two will be leaving later this week.

“We literally never know who we will have from one minute to the next and what their needs will be,” Stephens said.

The shelter also provides “respite care,” help for local families without anyone to turn to in the area.

For example, the shelter recently provided temporary housing for four children while their mother was in the hospital having a baby.

“If someone doesn’t have any family here and there is some kind of medical emergency, they know they can place their kids here and they will get three meals a day,” Stephens said.

The other service offered by Fertile Ground is Kyle’s House, a daycare for special needs children.

Kyle’s House opened in early June, and offers services for children ranging in age from newborn to 9, Director Naomi Henry said.

But the center hopes to be able to expand and provide after-school services for children 10 to 11, Henry said.

Because the center cares for infants, any donations of baby swings and infant sheets would be greatly appreciated, she said.

Any time that can be volunteered will also be of great use to Kyle’s House.

“All (anyone who wants to volunteer has) to do is fill out an application and we would do a background check on them,” Henry said. “We could use people who could help on field trips, or come in and read stories to the students or just help out in any way.”

The biggest need they have right now, however, is any kind of cleaning supplies, paper towels and toilet tissue.

“We go through that stuff pretty quickly, washing our hands every five minutes,” Henry said.

That is a need that Kyle’s House shares with the Sunshine Shelter, as well as for any kind of school supplies, Stephens said.

Other donations that would help the Sunshine Center include basic hygienic items like brush and comb sets.

But that’s not to say that that’s all you can donate, and Stephens said small things like $5 gift cards to McDonalds or Walmart cards are also good to give to the shelter.

“That would help us have incentives for good behavior,” she said.

Long-distance telephone cards would also be a nice donation, Stephens said.

“A lot of people don’t realize our children can have family contact with certain family members as long as the family members call them,” she said. “We just don’t have the budget for them to call and talk for 30 minutes to mom.”

Kyle’s House is at 19 Ridgeway Road.

The Sunshine Children’s Center can be reached at 601-445-2223.