LaSharon Ellis, 50, tells her story haltingly. Her words are slow and deliberate due to a stroke she suffered in November 2005. “I went to the doctor on an emergency. I was having headaches. I stayed about three or four hours and they gave me a pill and told me they were going to admit me. That was on Nov. 8. [From then] to Dec. 1, I didn’t do nothing. I couldn’t feed myself. I was like a vegetable. I have to go all the way back to kindergarten now. At first I couldn’t read nothing. Now after going to therapy I can write my name.”

Life has not been easy for LaSharon. She has spent much of it as a single parent in a Washington D.C. neighborhood raising her two daughters. “They graduated from Morgan State [in Baltimore, Maryland],” she says proudly, “I had to get jobs and work all day and all night in order for them to get graduated.”
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LaSharon graduated from Montgomery College nearby in Maryland. She spent many years as a civil servant working for the Department of Transportation and the Department of Child Enforcement. After those jobs, she worked for a non-profit organization as a computer operator. In between her college career and her civil servant work, LaSharon also attended cosmetology school. She wanted to have a trade to fall back on should she ever be laid off. Her forethought paid off when the layoffs came. LaSharon found work in a beauty shop and enjoyed it.  “I was doing hair so much and I loved it that I just stayed with doing hair,” she says.

In her early forties, LaSharon lived alone. Her children had graduated from college and were married and had their own children. She met and started dating a man with 7-year-old daughter, Nakia. He often would leave Nakia with LaSharon. “It didn’t matter to me,” says LaSharon, “Because I’ll take care of anybody’s child.”

LaSharon’s relationship with Nakia’s father ended. “His type of life is not my type of life,” LaSharon says, “I go to church and things like that. He’s a man that wants to go and see what’s out there in the world.”

LaSharon thought that he would come back and get Nakia after a month or two but Nakia, now 13, has lived with LaSharon for the past six years. LaSharon legally adopted Nakia. “And now, ain’t nobody going to take my baby. That’s it. Everything is legal for me.” She told Nakia, “I’m your mother and father now.”

Nakia’s father lives in the same neighborhood, but he is not very involved in Nakia’s life. “I know for the whole of last year, he only [saw] her at least five times,” says LaSharon.

Nakia listens quietly while her mother tells this story. When LaSharon talks about her stroke, Nakia tenderly rests her head on her mother's shoulder. Nakia recalls learning about LaSharon's stroke. She was in fifth grade at her after-school care program. Her father picked her up and told Nakia that they needed to go to the hospital. “It was sad. Devastating,” she says.

Now disabled due to the stroke, LaSharon is physically unable to work. Her daughters offered to help, letting their mother move in with them, but they encouraged LaSharon to take Nakia to her father. “I said no, I’m not going to do that,” LaSharon remembers, “This child she would be devastated if I leave her.”

So to stay together, LaSharon and Nakia went to a shelter. At the first one, the staff was less than sympathetic to LaSharon's physical needs. They then moved into a family shelter that LaSharon and Nakia were able to live there for longer than the year’s allotment. “God is good,” says LaSharon, “God gave me the strength.”

In December 2006, they moved into an apartment where the rent is $888 per month and includes gas and electric. LaSharon’s social security income plus money she receives for Nakia barely covers the rent. She gets $65 in food stamps each month. This does not meet their needs. She receives some food from her daughters and then gets the rest that she needs through MacFarland Middle School where Nakia attends.

World Vision helps facilitate the food donations through MacFarland Middle School and Central Union Gospel Mission—which teamed up to distribute the food. Sixty student volunteers unload, organize, and distribute the food to the 50 to 60 neediest families in the school.

World Vision also supports a program at MacFarland called PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention Supports) store. The kids get “ MacFarland bucks” for good behavior, punctuality, and class participation, and improved grades. The students can then spend their “bucks” at a store, where this academic year,  World Vision provides at least 60 percent of the items in the store. The items include clothing from companies such as Wal-Mart, Phat Farm, and New Balance, as well as school supplies, toys, and gift cards, which are purchased with program funds.

Nakia uses her “MacFarland bucks” to pay for field trips—something that LaSharon could not otherwise afford. Nakia and LaSharon use some of the items they get through the PBIS store, like Target gift cards, to help buy essentials.

Nakia, an excellent student, maintains A’s in all her classes except math, for which she receives tutoring through the school. She is a cheerleader and sings with the church choir on Tuesdays and Fridays. Nakia also participates in a school-sponsored program called Focus on Kids. This AIDS Awareness program runs for 18 sessions.

Nakia says she "feels secure" at MacFarland Middle School, despite the poverty and violence in the neighborhood outside its walls. She says Miss Davis-Shaw, the school counselor, "is a good counselor. She's fair. First she'll ask questions, if you get in trouble, then tell you not to do it again. Then [there'll be] negotiations and finally a one-day suspension."

Through the programs that World Vision coordinates and offers, LaSharon and Nakia can afford essentials that they might otherwise go without. Because of World Vision’s involvement, Nakia can participate in extracurricular school activities, that might have been too expensive before. LaSharon hopes that Nakia continues on through college. "I hope she goes to a college or technical school out of town so that I can come and visit her," she says. It’s plain to see LaSharon's pride in her daughter. “Nakia, she’s a blessing.”

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