LightHouse Women & Children\u2019s Center<\/a> in Reading.<\/p>\n\u201cWe opened just a little over two years ago. We opened a ministry to women and children who are homeless,\u201d said Executive Director Kate Alley.<\/p>\n
Inside, about 72 women and children are currently living here.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s a lot of different reasons why people come, but they all are facing the same crisis of being homeless and being isolated, being alone and feeling afraid,\u201d Alley said.<\/p>\n
The playground sits right outside their window. The kids have watched every step of construction, asking the same question every day: \u201cWhen can we go out there?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd saying hurry up to those construction workers. And so we’re going to have a ribbon cutting and then the kids are going to flood onto the playground and just have a great time,\u201d Alley said.<\/p>\n
Staff members say for the mothers here, it\u2019s more than just a place to play. It\u2019s a chance to see their children smile again.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe moms have said to us already how grateful they are that there’s a beautiful safe place for the children to play, that there’s a place for them to have moments of joy and fun and to really be just a kid,\u201d Alley said.<\/p>\n
And there\u2019s more planned.<\/p>\n
The next phase includes building additional transitional housing across the city, so families here can eventually move into affordable homes of their own.<\/p>\n
If you know someone who needs help, the center says you can call 2-1-1 to be connected with services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. – New swings. Slides. Bright colors. This is the first playground ever built at the LightHouse…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[17792,17791,9331,17788,391,17790,17789,17786,8238,1958,28,7171,17787,736,128,130,129],"class_list":{"0":"post-27163","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-2-1-1","9":"tag-childrens-center","10":"tag-executive-director","11":"tag-homeless-shelter","12":"tag-homelessness","13":"tag-kate-alley","14":"tag-lighthouse-women","15":"tag-lighthouse-women-childrens-center","16":"tag-outdoor-recreation","17":"tag-parks","18":"tag-pennsylvania","19":"tag-play","20":"tag-playground","21":"tag-reading","22":"tag-reading-city","23":"tag-reading-city-headlines","24":"tag-reading-city-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}