Feeling at home: Shade Tree mothers, children care for park

Jean Reid Norman

Monday, May 12, 2003 | 11:13 a.m.

Jeanne Burroughs, a mother of three, found herself this Mother's Day living with her two youngest in a homeless shelter in downtown Las Vegas.

If you ask Burroughs, it's not a bad place to be.

Three years ago she was a blackjack dealer in Las Vegas. She moved to Victorville, Calif., and found herself supporting 5-year-old Samantha and 3-year-old Sarah Beaver on welfare. A week ago she moved back, landing in the Shade Tree Shelter for women and children. She has her first job interview today and is confident she will be back on her feet in no time.

"You can never be without a job in Las Vegas," she said. "Up here I knew I could be off welfare."

Burroughs was one of about a dozen Shade Tree mothers who spent Sunday at James Gay Park, enjoying a picnic lunch provided by the city of Las Vegas and watching their children play.

Most of them had started the day about 10:30 in the morning, walking the two blocks from the shelter to the park to clean things up first. It was part of a program the shelter started four months ago, when the park reopened after renovation, to teach the children responsibility: In the activity center, the children are taught the lessons, then once a month they go to the park to put them into practice, according to assistant director Bridget Claridy.

When they arrived, they had their work cut out for them, said Councilman Lawrence Weekly, who arranged for the celebration and helped with the day's work. Despite that the park was designated a "children's park" in 1999 -- meaning that no adults are allowed without children under 12 in tow -- when the group arrived, half a dozen prostitutes were trolling the small park, with johns following them, Weekly said.

"For these kids to be exposed to this, it's frustrating to me," Weekly said. "It makes my job tougher."

The restrooms were unusable, one girl discovered.

City marshals and park staff were called to take care of the big problems, while the children filled 10 trash bags with waste.

But even as the children ate their sandwiches and cake, a homeless man slept beneath a tree a couple of hundred feet away.

That didn't dampen the spirit of the day. Fourth grader Jonathan Inga, 11, had put his boundless energy to work filling a trash bag by himself, then rode his bike up and down the ramps.

He thought he'd done his share and more, after he told a marshal about two men he'd seen smoking marijuana by the basketball hoops.

His mother, Sheri, who's been at Shade Tree just a week, remembered the park before the renovation that had closed it until four months ago, and before it became a children's park.

"Last time I was in this park, it was real tore up. It was all homeless people sleeping here," she said. "It's safer now."

"I took a lot of criticism for making this a children's park," Weekly said, noting that the role of the Shade Tree moms and their children there illustrates the need for the move, which was criticized by civil libertarians. "Shade Tree not only uses this park, but also come over and clean it. These kids need to feel responsible."

Karen Stanley, mother of four children from ages 5 to 13, said in the week she's been at the shelter, she's seen the children learn more responsible behavior.

"I've seen some changes in them," she said. She also was glad to discover the park.

"I was looking for a park to take them," she said. "I just didn't know where to go."

Burroughs, who credits Shade Tree with her newfound confidence, was glad to have the park and a place that has helped her put her where she needs to be, she said.

"If you love your kids, you do whatever has to be done," she said, "even if it's a shelter."