Sanctuary from Harm - 7. Sanc Chapter 7

Jonah led us into the entry hall of the lower level of the main warehouse, and both Charles and Scott were still speechless about where they were, somewhere underground. “So, where the dickens, are we now?” Scott asked us after I had arrived in the hall and closed the door behind me.

“We are in the lower ground floor of the warehouse, of course,” Jonah said with a straight face, and both of them looked at Nathan and me to see if this was indeed true, and I just smiled and nodded my head, yes to confirm that this is true. “Welcome to the education section of the warehouse gentlemen, on the other side of this reception area, is where we came down last time to show you around this level,” I said to Scott and Charles.

“Wow, now that is something that I did not expect, a secret back door to the place,” Charles commented.
Well actually, soon it will be the main door to the place. Once the loading bay entry and the front entry on the ground level have been bricked and stoned up, it will be the only way in and out of the warehouse,” I announced.

“Ah, so that is what you mean by special security measures for the complex, very sneaky,” Scott said grinning, “Yes, so once we have all of the heavy stuff inside the warehouse, we will block it all off, so there is no way in or out, except through the tunnel, which has to remain top secret between the five of us,” I replied.

After Scott and Charles had left, and the external doors were all locked for the night, I noticed Jonah looking at the steps down to the lower level, and frowning as if something was bugging him.

“What is it, son? What has got you all in a state?” I asked Jonah with some concern, and Nathan too had noticed this, “Yes please don’t bottle it up, we need to know things if you are worried about something,” Nathan added.

“It’s nothing really Uncle Nate, it is just that I wanted to wait till the others had left before I mention this to you both … When we were in the tunnel coming back from the house, I noticed something, that I had missed before,” Jonah said to us.

“Yes, what is it that you noticed son?” I asked, “Well, I think I have found another tunnel, but it looks like it is bricked up, to hide it?” Jonah announced, and I looked at Nathan, who shrugged his shoulders. “Hey wait a minute, maybe … just maybe this other tunnel leads to the other warehouse next door.

We haven’t done anything to it, apart from having a good look around, when I first bought the properties, and even then, the lighting was fairly poor, so, yes I could have easily missed another lower level and tunnel,” I commented, as I headed for the stairs to the lower level, with the others following me.

Once we had entered the long passage, I let Jonah take the lead, and about ten metres from the door into the entry hall, Jonah stopped and turned towards the wall. “Right here Dad, and now I can feel a breeze coming from somewhere near here,” Jonah commented, as we approached him.

The lights in the passageway are quite dim, so it was not very easy to see the wall clearly, so I placed my hands on the wall, and walked sideways a few paces, until I felt a straight vertical spacing in the wall, walking back the way we came, I soon found another vertical gap in the wall.

Taking one step back the way I was before, I leaned hard against the wall, and surprisingly, the wall began to move, swinging inwards, as I had guessed, it is on a central pivot, and Nathan and Jonah stepped back a bit so as not to be hit by the other side of the swinging wall.

Stepping inside, I felt around, until I found a light switch, and flicked it on, to reveal another long passageway, which I followed for about 50 metres, before it ends, with a doorway on the right-hand side, which was slightly open, which explained why there was a breeze coming through.

Opening the door wide, I walked in and located a light switch and flicked it on, to reveal a short passage, going left and right, with a single door at each end. I was now remembering the layout of this lower level of the second warehouse, a large room at each end and one in the middle, with a passageway along the back, with access to the two stairways, as I turned left towards the end doorway.

Once Nathan and Jonah had caught up with me and entered the large room, I smiled, as I thought of a plan for this area. “Right, I remember everything now. We will be making some modifications to the sporting facilities, down here on this level we will have two basketball courts at each end, and just an open multi-purpose hall in the centre,” I said as I headed for the back passageway and the stairs leading to the ground level of the warehouse.

Walking into the Entry hallway, I poked my head through the door to the loading bay, before turning to Nathan and Jonah, “Right on this level, I think we will have two indoor soccer pitches, and the ground level of the gymnasium in the centre, which will include a climbing wall leading up to the upper level.

In the loading bay, two of the four storerooms will remain the same, while the other two will be turned into sports change rooms. The loading bay and front entries will also have to be blocked off, to ensure tight security, and we will need to install solar panels on the roof, to assist with coping with the power needs for both buildings.

If you look up you will see, there are two mezzanine decks, which I have not decided what to do with them at the moment, I will have to sleep on that for a while, unless either of you have any brainstorm ideas on what to do with those two areas, apart from installing safety railing on them both and the walkway,” I announced.

“If you are going to have indoor soccer and basketball in this building, does that mean that the other side of the first building will be tennis courts also?” Jonah asked me.

“Yes son, I guess it will, unless we can add any other sports courts in, but I think three sports will be enough,” I replied.

“What about the area above the loading bay in this building, will it be a Billiards room, like the first building?” Nathan asked, “No, I don’t think so, that is another area that we have to decide what to do with it. Maybe our first residents may come up with some ideas,” I suggested.

Over the next few months, with the assistance of the trustees, we made all the required changes to the second warehouse, including having recycled rubber compound as a floor for all sports courts and the gymnasium, making the ground softer and safer to play sports on.

During this time, the other bedrooms were also added to each side of the first floor of the main warehouse, so as to be able to accommodate a total of 40 people. With all the heavy work completed and every room in both warehouses now fully furnished, the front doors to both warehouses were bricked up, on the outside, and limestone blocks on the inside, with steel sheeting between it.

That is with the exception of the two mezzanine decks and the first floor of the second warehouse above the loading bay, which is now a solar generating power station, plus water storage tanks, for collecting all the rainwater off the roofs.

As well as Nathan, the project now had Scott, Charles, Brent and Kurt as full-time staff members, with Charles being the operations manager, Kurt and Nathan are sharing cooking duties, Brent is taking care of the gardens and building maintenance, and while Scott and I share positions as project coordinators, with Nathan also working as a project counsellor.

The house has been turned into the project centre, where any initial counselling and the induction will take place, before the residents are taken through to the main complex, that being the two warehouses. An automatic roller door was installed at the front of the double garage of the house.

A door made from the garage into the master bedroom, to provide access to the house from the garage, and the front door was removed and the doorway was bricked up, while all windows had double glazing installed and heavy-duty security screens installed, over them.

The windows in the kitchen, laundry and dining room, were all tinted with double tinting, so as to block out any view from inside or out at any time during the day or night, as part of a plan that Nathan and me had thought of, as a way of getting the new residents from the house to the main warehouse building, without revealing the secret passageway.

Nathan, Scott and I already have a list of young people that we know that have been homeless for some time and are in need of urgent intervention, to stop them from becoming victims of crime or committing crimes to survive.

Our plan is for our first day of operations, we will travel around the streets, to locate and invite these people to join us in a new project, that will give them a place to live, food to drink, activities and education classes to keep them busy, sporting activities to keep them active, and counselling when needed.

As the project, Nathan, Scott and I had put together a programme that will benefit the young people, to get back onto their feet, to assist them with their education, or looking for work, and eventually finding a place to live independently.

Most of the young people that we would be helping are aged between 16 to 19 years old, and the majority of them are male, with a total of 18 of them currently on our active list. With two days before the official start of the programme, with all five staff now living onsite, along with Jonah and myself, the trustees had requested a final inspection tour of the property, before the project officially begins.

With our new Toyota Tarago, 7-seater van, plus my Toyota Prado, Nathan and I were able to collect and transport the 6 members of the board of trustees, plus two guests that Mr Grantley said he invited to come along and invited them to be on the board as independent members of the board.

I was not too happy about this happening without me being informed first, but now I had no choice in the matter, as they are the ones who are financing this project, which until just a few days ago, didn’t even have a name to it.

It was during dinner one night, that Jonah brought up the subject of the project and what it is to be called, and all the staff had not even thought of the idea of the name, except to call it the project. “Dad, what exactly is this project about?” Jonah asked me as we thought about possible names for this project.

“Well, I guess the best way to describe it is helping homeless people to discover a new life through a process of exploration, by working as a team to learn through education, through sport and general support from the project team,” I replied.

“I understood most of that… How about calling it the Discovery Project?” Jonah responded. I looked at my son for a moment, before looking at Nathan, then Scott, Charles, Brent and Kurt. “You know boss, I think your son is brilliant, it is a perfect name for the project,” Charles stated, and the rest of the staff agreed.

With Nathan and me driving the two vehicles, we collected the 8 Board of Trustee members at the Grantley residence, where we learnt, they had just concluded their monthly meeting. I was introduced to Michelle Adamson, and Christie Jacobs, who are both aged in their late thirties, and I was informed that they have both worked in the Child, Youth and Family welfare industry for over ten years each.

In my vehicle, I had my parents, Christie and Mr Grantley, while Nathan had the other four people in the Tarago, as we headed towards the project, which is a forty-minute drive from the Grantley home. As I turned onto the street before the warehouse, almost right away Mr Grantley noticed and spoke up.

“This is not the way to the project, why are we going this way?” he asked me from the front passenger seat. “Sir, we have a new administration centre, that you may not be aware of, and it is there that we are heading,” I responded, and moments later, I turned into the driveway of the house, and pressed the button for the automatic roller door to open, and I drove in, with Nathan parking right next to my vehicle, soon after.

With the lights coming automatically as soon as the roller door begins to open, I climbed out and headed for the only other door in the garage, which I opened, using my pass key card and a six-digit code into the pad, before the door clicked open.

We had furnished what was originally the master bedroom, into a small lounge room, and once everyone had entered and the door was closed, I smiled, before beginning the introduction. “Welcome to Discovery Project, we have facilities here to accommodate a total of 40 young people, with living recreation, sporting and educational facilities available to them.

This is our induction and counselling centre, which is totally separate from the other buildings when we bring the residents into our care, they will arrive exactly the same way that you came, and brought into here.

In there, is a bathroom, where each resident will be asked to shower, and change into clothes that we will issue to them, which will be boxers, teeshirt, track pants and jumper, the clothes that they arrived in will be checked and washed, before being stored away, and other belongings that they bring with them will also be checked and stored.

They will be issued with three sets of clothes, including socks and singlets, along with a pair of slip-on sneakers, a pair of clogs, and pair of slip-ons. Once they have showered and changed, they will be taken through to the office, which is now a medical examination room, where each one of them will receive a medical checkup, to make sure that every person that enters this facility is healthy.

Once that is completed, the new residents will have a short meeting with one of the counsellors, to see if there are any issues that need to be kept an eye on during their stay at our facility,” I informed the board members as I showed them the examination room and the two counselling rooms.

“That all sounds very good so far, but we really want to see the rest of the facilities,” my father stated, “I am getting there father, I am just waiting for… ah, here they are,” I said just as the rest of the team arrived from the direction of the kitchen.

“Ladies and gentlemen, for the purpose of security of our facility, we will be blindfolding you for approximately two minutes, so please place these on your head and over your eyes, so that you can sot see anything at all,” Charles instructed the trustees. “Charles, I must protest, this is not what we came here for, we need to be able to know everything if we are to continue to support this facility,” Mr Grantley said sternly.

“I am sorry, father, but if you want to see the facility, there is now only one way in and out, and to get there, you must follow our instructions,” Charles replied calmly. Still grumbling, Mr Grantley agreed and put the blind-fold on, and once all the trustees were blind-folded, I took the lead.

“Now ladies and gentlemen, please place your right hand on the shoulder of the person in front of you, and you will be guided through a number of doorways and then some stairs,” I said, as I opened the door into the dining room, where it is pitch black.

The team and I had rehearsed this procedure many times over the past week, once we had agreed on the system of induction, so we were used to the darkness of the room, and we knew where everything is. With Mr Grantley first in line, I said to him to place his hand on my shoulder, which he did, and we started moving slowly, giving instructions as we went.

“Entering next room, turn left, take five paces then turn right, take two paces and stop,” I said clearly, so everyone understood, and the other team members were beside the trustees, so they didn’t collide into a doorway or wall. “Ok, now a staff member will take the arm of the first 4 trustees and lead you for the next stage, so just follow their instructions,” I announced.

“This is ridiculous, I don’t want to be fiddling around with this stupid game,” Mr Grantley stated, “Father, you will do as you are told, or not go into the facility at all, do you hear me,” Charles snapped at his father, which caught everyone by surprise. There was a period of silence before I heard Mr Grantley exhale loudly.