HOW TO HELP
If you’d like to help, Betty Taylor says the children she tutors and entertains are in the need of school supplies and non-perishable foods.
These both can be dropped off during school hours — 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. — until May 27 at Crawford Woods Elementary, 2200 Hensley Ave. in Hamilton and when the school re-opens Aug. 10 from summer break.
Clothing for children under Taylor’s supervision may be donated in her name at The Caring Closet, 6 South D St. in Hamilton
Havens come in all shapes and sizes.
In this Hamilton trailer park community it’s a tiny, square mobile home Betty Taylor has transformed into a heart-shaped world for needy children.
The 65-year-old Taylor doesn’t live in the trailer – her home is elsewhere in the Sky Meadows Mobile Home Park – but the extra trailer is a safe haven for dozens of neighborhood youngsters that wouldn’t exist without Taylor’s generosity.
A former children’s pastor, Taylor wanted to give local children an after-school place to study and hang out so she took the extraordinary step of buying a second mobile home to do just that.
“We call it the Club House,” Taylor says smiling as she maneuvers through the crowded 14-foot by 75-foot trailer converted into a hybrid school and community room.
For two days a week — from late afternoon to early evening — and more during summer break, Taylor’s extra mobile home is the youthful hub on this tiny community.
On this recent afternoon two dozen youngsters are happily packed into the trailer. It’s raining so the basketball hoop, yard games and picnic tables outside sit dripping and unused.
Instead, the learning and the fun are inside as boys and girls, many of them of Hispanic descent and enrolled in Hamilton Schools’ English as a Second Language (ESL) program, fill the trailer with a bubbly bilingual mix.
A back bedroom features donated school desks, school supplies, used books and learning games and colorful wall decorations.
If not on the carpeted floor, children sit on donated furniture. Some are wearing clothes also donated to Taylor. Some do homework, others relax and chat while patiently waiting for dinner — whipped up from donated food — being cooked in the trailer’s kitchen.
Nearly everything in Taylor’s “club house” is donated, but it is Taylor who gladly gives the most of all.
A cancer survivor, Taylor is modest, giving credit to God for having enough to provide to those who don’t. Christian and patriotic symbols and messages abound inside and around the property. Bowed heads and grace are the first servings of every meal and snack.
“God said to do this,” says Taylor, who is retired after working 29 years as a residence employee at Miami University’s Oxford campus.
“They (neighborhood kids) had nothing to do. We saw the need was right here and things started falling into place. This here became our main thing and it just started growing,” she says, recalling when the “club house” started about eight years ago.
“They are our family and they know they are safe here,” she says gazing over the happy children.
A couple of months ago Hamilton Schools’ ESL teacher Krista Anstead heard about Taylor’s generosity from some of her students at nearby Crawford Woods Elementary so she visited Taylor and saw her in action.
“I was awestruck,” Anstead said.
“She noticed a need and filled it. But she went above and beyond what I would have ever imagined. She is not only helping the children with their academic skills, but she is also helping them with their life skills,” she said.
Taylor says “we’ve never really asked anybody for any help. Stuff just shows up. God supplies it one way or another.”
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