The Little House needs a big favor from the Northeast Georgia community — help maintaining the building on Washington Street.

The Hall-Dawson Court Appointed Special Advocates and the Edmondson-Telford Center for Children opened the center last year to help abused and neglected children.

"Unfortunately, we’ve seen an increase in the number of children we are serving due to the economy," said Connie Stephens, Hall-Dawson CASA executive director. "Families are under a lot of stress these days, and unfortunately children get the brunt of that stress."

In 2009, the Hall-Dawson CASA program advocated for more than 390 children, 156 of those children were 5 years old or younger.

It took the organizations nearly a decade to raise funds for the house, and now that it is open, they need volunteers to help keep up the facility, especially the exterior.

"We have lots of gorgeous flowers that were donated to us, but it takes a lot of maintenance to keep them up. But unfortunately, as two non-profits, we don’t have the funds to maintain them," Stephens said. "We also need help with other things besides gardening — like organizing the toy room, helping out in the office or even supplying snacks for the children."

When abuse and neglect cases are identified, Edmondson-Telford staff members work on conducting initial interviews and forensic medical exams while CASA teams help the young victims through the legal process.

With rooms dedicated for examinations, play, interviews and family visitation, The Little House keeps the young victims from being transported from building to building.

"Before The Little House opened, the children had to go to the hospital for exams and sometimes even to the sheriff’s office for interviews — those experiences alone could be traumatic for some children," Stephens said. "Here, everything is very child friendly. There are bright colors, lots of toys and other things to make them feel comfortable."

Stephens said volunteers and community donations are what allow The Little House to continue to help children.

"We are in a $2 million building and it has been totally paid for. We’ve been struggling a lot lately with our grant funding, so to be debt-free is huge," she said.

But volunteers are still crucial to keep services going at The Little House.

"We couldn’t function without community support — or volunteers," Stephens said. "Last year we had 166 volunteers that put in nearly 12,000 hours and drove more than 90,000 miles to advocate for our children. They did all of that without compensation — they’re simply phenomenal."