Winter 2018
NEW HEIGHTS Stories about life-changing journeys made possible by you!
Early Intervention Helps Baby Steven Thrive
S
teve and Esmeralda Hall weren’t able to have biological children, but they had a lot of love to give a child. The Lancaster, Calif., couple began the foster-toadopt process.
The Halls were very interested in fostering a baby who had been surrendered under California’s 2006 Safely Surrendered Baby Law. The law encourages parents to surrender a newborn at a hospital or fire station with no questions asked, rather than abandoning the child. One day, a woman brought a baby who was just five hours old to a local police station. At first, she claimed she found the newborn boy in the park, but officers convinced her it was legal to surrender him. She admitted he was born at home in the bathtub.
“By day two we got the call about him, and by day three he was in our custody.”
“By day two, we got the call about him, and by day three he was in our custody,” Steve recalls. The couple named him Steven Elisha. The Halls officially adopted Baby Steven, whom they affectionately call “little man,” on his first birthday. Around that time, Esmerelda and Steve learned that their little boy, who was struggling to develop his motor skills, had likely suffered a stroke in the womb. A neurologist diagnosed him with a type of cerebral palsy called hemiplegia. The part of Baby Steven’s brain that controls muscle movements was damaged. (continued on page 6)
NEW HEIGHTS
Camp Bloomfield was destroyed in California’s Woolsey Fire, but camp will happen in 2019!
Q&A with CEO Miki Jordan page 2
From the Archives page 3
Camp Bloomfield Update page 4