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How the Christmas “Toy Store” Helped One Mother Give Her Son a New Start
 When Ieesha Slay lost her job and came to the Samaritan Center for Christmas help last year, she had no idea what she was getting into.
“In the Samaritan Center’s special Christmas ‘Toy Store’ that they fill once a year with new toys for clients, I struggled to choose gifts for my eleven-year-old son, Dejuan,” Ieesha remembers. “Now, though, I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t picked out one gift in particular: skates.”
The skates and the other gifts that Ieesha brought home from the Samaritan Center’s Christmas "Toy Store" were the only ones that made it under the Christmas tree that year. On Christmas morning, her children were elated. Dejuan’s full appreciation of his skates, however, didn’t come to fruition immediately.
“It wasn’t until he had a bike injury that tore his heel entirely off that he really, really started wanting to skate,” Ieesha reflects. “He wasn’t supposed to walk or do anything at all that would put pressure on it, so for a while skating was not an option. Of course, that was when his little brother started doing it, so of course Dejuan wanted it, too—now more than ever.”
Eventually, as it grew plain that Dejuan’s heel was up to the challenge, Ieesha gave in. Still, at first she was terrified, fearing the worst as she watched him totter back and forth around the house, learning how to keep his balance.
 “But then he got better and better,” she recalls. “Before I knew it, he was skating around like a pro and looking for any excuse he could find to put his beloved skates on. ‘Mom, can I skate to the trash can? Mom, can I skate to the car?’”
Once Ieesha saw the good that was coming from the skates, she began to fear less and cheer more. After all, his increased level of activity was helping him kick the depression and the excess weight that had inevitably accompanied three months of minimal exertion.
As she watched her son’s transformation, Ieesha also felt a personal call to action.
“So I went to the Samaritan Center and bought a pair of used skates for myself,” she shares. “I’d never skated before and didn’t much like the idea, but I saw a new way my boys and I could spend quality time together, and I couldn’t resist. I knew that if I just gave it a chance, I, too could learn to love the activity that nursed my sweet son back to health.”
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