It dawns on you pretty quickly that you might want to think twice before challenging Rebecca Shelton to a game of air hockey. She fires the thin red puck off her paddles with lightning speed. Her hands zip back and forth across the table in a veritable blur. On the other side of the table is Tony, who is experiencing first-hand Rebecca’s formidable skills, although he seems to be holding his own. The score is two to two, and they appear to be evenly matched. Tony just turned 12 years old. Rebecca is 81.

A few feet away, Estelle Batiste is sitting on the floor with her friend Sammy, plugging in the pegs of a Lite Brite design. Sammy is making a cat. Estelle’s design is a bit more “abstract,” although she claims it is a guitar.

To the children at Bush Memorial Children’s Center, Rebecca is just “Granny,” and Estelle is “Grandma Estelle.” They come to Bush most afternoons to play air hockey, or Legos, or basketball, or any of a number of other games with the dozens of kids for whom this is home. They’re also there if the kids need help with their homework, or want someone to read them a story, or just need someone to talk to when they’re feeling lonely. In every sense of the word, they are grandmas.

Well, foster grandparents, actually. Granny and Grandma Estelle are two of four foster grandparents who visit with the children at Bush most days of the week. For the past 33 years, Bush has been helping children ages 5 to 14 who have severe mental health, emotional and/or behavioral issues make their way through the trauma in their lives. And if anyone needs the comforting influence of a grandparent, these children do. Many have experienced abuse or have been neglected. Some of them are troubled . . . and hurting. It’s what keeps Granny and Grandma Estelle and the other foster grandparents coming back day after day, year after year.

“The kids here at Bush have a lot of issues. A lot of them have been abused in all sorts of ways. They often don’t have a grandparent, or even a mother or father, who are there for them. I can see the pain in their faces, which just makes me want to come back and help all the more,” Grandma Estelle said. “I try to instill in them that they are special—that someone cares and won’t stop caring.”