In addition to the day-care center and the after-school program, the House contains a food pantry, which approximately 1,500 people in the area use.
"We are already overused," said Myers, referring to the projected effect of welfare reform on the food pantry. "We are a supplementary food pantry, which means that we can give two bags of food to a family once a month. Two bags of food is enough for two days.
"We bring in 2,000 pounds of food each week and give it away," she says. "We're already stretched to almost the breaking point. But that's almost always the case with the Margaret Fuller Neighborhood House. We're a house, not an institution."
Just like any other non-profit public service organization, the Margaret Fuller Neighborhood House is deeply dependent upon grants and donations.
Its main sources of funding for the day-care center and the after-school program are the state Department of Social Services, Department of Education and the Kendall Community Group.
The food pantry, on the other hand, is supported by Project Brad, a large state program that organized the Walk for Hunger and donates money to buy food for the pantry.
The Department of Agriculture aids through a supply of commodities such as canned vegetables and beef.
Another source of food for the pantry is the donation of salvaged food and canned products which stores cannot sell either due to physical defects or because they have passed their expiration date.
"The need is always much greater than what the resource is," Myers says. "We have a very small budget, though. We have a $200,000 per year budget. We have four or five staff people and an executive director who gets paid $36,000 a year. We get some support from grant makers, and people give $3,000 or $4,000 for summer camps, etc. We survive off of that."
In addition to providing children with a fun, safe and intellectual environment, the house also seeks to strengthen and empower the children emotionally through activities such as African dancing.
"We live in a society which doesnt make people feel good about themselves," said Myers. "[The house] gives [the children] an opportunity to develop self esteem. There also is emotional development such as learning how to control yourself. [Part of the reason why we succeed is because] the kids arent [at the house in our care] just for two or three hours. We have them for two to three years, so we can do a little each day.