Life's Gifts
Saturday. Skyla DeBlois, 11, had $184 in
profit from her lemonade stand at season's end. She decided to invest it in
Christmas.
‘Giving is good for so many reasons’
Skyla DeBlois, 11, turns money from her lemonade stand into Christmas gifts for veteran and daughter
SMITHFIELD — Skyla De-Blois closed her business for the season, counted her money and gave it away, again. “It just makes me happy,” she says. Skyla’s 11. She runs a lemonade stand. She lives beside the town baseball field. Her lemonade costs 75 cents. Apparently it’s popular. Last spring, Skyla donated $40 to the Rhode Island Food Bank and $30 to Pink Heals, a breast cancer charity. Then Skyla kept selling, saving and giving.
Two weeks ago, Skyla counted the remaining profits from her April-to-September season: $184. And she gave that away, too.
“My mother said, ‘You could adopt a family with that.’ ” So that’s what Skyla did. For Christmas gift-giving, Skyla adopted an-out-of-work veteran, Justin St. Pierre, and his daughter, Summer, 2, of Providence.
“I knew Skyla was giving gifts to Summer,” St. Pierre says. “I didn’t know she’d be giving gifts to me. I really appreciate it.”
Skyla gave Summer lots of toys; and she gave St. Pierre $90 in gifts cards.
“I didn’t ask Skyla why,” St. Pierre says. “She said she just wanted to do something nice for veterans.”
Staci DeBlois, Skyla’s mother, introduced her daughter to Sherry Elder-kin, the special projects manager at Operation Stand Down, a Rhode Island organization that assists needy veterans.
“I let people know that we have veteran families that are homeless and very low income and in need of gifts,” Elderkin says.
Donors, Elderkin says, are businesses and individuals, though generally adults.
“Skyla’s selfless act touched and changed our lives,” Elderkin says.
Instead of just giving money to Operation Stand Down, Skyla chose to give gifts, and present them herself — to St. Pierre and Summer, whom she met last weekend.
“It speaks multitudes of how her parents are bringing her up,” Elderkin says.
Staci and David DeBlois, a bank worker and information technology specialist, respectively, donate money, clothes and items to charities. They require their daughters Skyla and Ariana Burton, 13, (from her mother’s first marriage) to donate a bag of clothes/toys each birthday and Christmas.
“I never thought of it as giving,” David DeBlois says. “It’s just something we do.”
For Christmas, Skyla says she wants a Kindle electronic-book reader and a charger for her Nintendo game. She could have bought them herself, if she didn’t give away her money.
“But I’m giving to someone who doesn’t have stuff rather than to someone who has stuff [me],” Skyla says. “It’s not about getting. It’s about giving. It’s better and nicer.”
Besides, Skyla says, San-ta Claus is coming to town. And Skyla’s been very good.
“I don’t want to get coal in my stocking. So giving is good for so many reasons.”
To this you might say, “There’s a Santa Claus?”
“Duh!” Skyla says. “Yes! I’m going to prove it. This year my mother promised we’d put a video camera in front of her door on Christ-mas Eve to make sure no feet go by.”
Skyla, a sixth grader at Gallagher Middle School who participates in gymnastics and Girl Scouts, is bright-eyed, animated and energetic, sometimes more enthusiastic than you might expect. Skyla has Asperger syndrome. Some may know of the disorder because it was widely reported the gunman in the Connecticut massacre had Asperger’s. And some speculated it could have caused his violence.
That deeply offends the DeBloises.
“That was so irresponsible,” David DeBlois says. “People are really ignorant about autism and Asperger’s and aren’t going to know better.”
Connecting Asperger’s with violence, Staci DeBlois says, is just plain wrong.
“One has nothing to do with the other.”
Skyla’s generosity disproves those associations.
“I get this feeling when I see a container that’s empty,” Skyla says. “I just want to fill it up with money and give it to some organization.”
The DeBlois house doesn’t have a chimney for a fireplace, just one for a wood stove. But that, Skyla says, won’t pose a problem for Santa, who she says will “poof through the door.”
Skyla says Santa is enterprising and kind, generous and giving. And perhaps an out-of-work veteran living in subsidized housing might say that Santa isn’t old or fat, or even a man.
“I’m low on funds,” St. Pierre says. “Skyla made it possible for someone else to have a much better Christ-mas.”
This holiday series tells the stories of people who have given or received extraordinary gifts in their lives. Share your life's gifts at Facebook.com/providence- journal brourke@providencejournal.com
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Skyla DeBlois says she’s going to prove there’s a Santa Claus.
Justin St. Pierre, a veteran receiving assistance, and his 2-year-old daughter, Summer, are the beneficiaries of Skyla’s gifts.
