The setting sun hovered over Staci Smith’s left shoulder Saturday as she lifted a microphone and began to unfurl a dream.
“Are you all ready to see some Hollywood up in here?” Smith asked a crowd gathered in front of her tidy beige house on Keck Street in Goodyear Heights.
“Welcome the incomparable, the talented Mark Smelko!”
A moment passed.
“Where’s Mark? Come on out, Mark!” Smith announced over a loudspeaker with the cadence and enthusiasm of Oprah Winfrey telling an audience she was giving them each a new car.
The screen door opened and Mark stepped onto the front stoop between two 4-foot inflatable Oscar statues and then onto a red carpet that was illuminated on either side with clear Christmas lights.
The 18-year-old Garfield High School student with special needs wore the dark pants and tie his mom made him buy for himself at Walmart and Sears, something special for Garfield’s homecoming that night, the first school dance that he and most of his classmates attended.
“Mark is in 12th grade,” Smith told the crowd, who clapped and cheered as Mark stepped forward to accept an award for being himself. “His favorite color is red, his favorite food is pizza and he enjoys watching football!”
His classmate — and Staci Smith’s daughter — Londen Smith trailed behind Mark, but it wasn’t her turn on the red carpet and Staci shooed her back inside even though she was secretly thrilled by her daughter’s enthusiasm.
Dreams were coming true Saturday on Keck Street — for Staci, for a class of students with special needs and for their families.
And this Cinderella story — spiked with Hollywood glamor, hometown pride and roaring motorcycles — had just begun
Unfailing hope
Staci had never been to a school dance.
She told friends at Central-Hower High School she didn’t want to go, but it was a fib. Staci came of age in Summit County’s foster care system and didn’t have the money or the support to make it happen.
At 19, she gave birth to Londen during the sixth month of an unexpected pregnancy. Londen weighed only a pound and was unresponsive for 23 minutes before doctors were able to revive her, Staci said.
Londen wasn’t expected to survive, but when she did, doctors warned that Londen would “be a vegetable,” Staci said.
Staci’s relationship with her own mother was strained, but she reached out looking for help and advice.
Her mom told her to unplug life support because she could always have another child.
“I remember wondering if that’s what my mom thought about me, that I was disposable,” Staci said. “I decided in that moment I would be a different kind of mother.”
Londen was transferred from Summa Akron City Hospital where she was born to Akron Children’s. Staci had been working two jobs and lost them both.
When Londen was released 3½ months later, Staci took her infant daughter to an apartment in Summit Lake with nothing to use for a bed but her leather coat.
Doctors were still pessimistic. They said Londen would likely never walk. But, determined to be a mother who didn’t give up on her child, Staci did daily exercises with Londen hoping otherwise.
When Londen was 3, Staci gave birth to a son, Keysean Stephens. A year later, on the same day Keysean took his first steps, Londen — then 4 — finally took hers.
London, now 16, has cerebral palsy and other disabilities. She walks without help or a cane, but her gait can be unsteady and she often runs into people or things because once she starts moving, it can be difficult to stop.
At Garfield High, Londen and her special needs classmates work at Garbuck’s, the school’s coffee shop. Londen’s teacher Leslie Coffey —who everyone calls Ms. Coffey — created Garbuck’s to teach special needs student job skills to help them find work after graduation.
Londen’s favorite task is pumping coffee to order from insulated pots, but she washes and dries dishes, too.
Last year before homecoming, Ms. Coffey encouraged her students to come to then dance, sending word to their families that she would be at the dance to watch over them.
Only Londen showed up.
Ms. Coffey hovered over her at first, not knowing how Londen would be greeted by other students as she headed onto the dance floor. But the children embraced Londen, who danced the rest of the night.
As homecoming approached this year, Staci fretted that Londen would again be the only student at the dance with special needs.
Staci reached out to Ms. Coffey. If she rented a limousine, woul Londen’s classmates meet at her Keck Street home and come along?
Maybe.
There were obstacles. Not everyone could afford tickets to the dance, which cost $15, or something to wear. And some of the students’ parents worked different shifts and came from different parts of the city and didn’t have a way to get to Staci’s house.
But Staci and Ms. Coffey wanted to make it happen, to strip away the special-needs label from these students for a night and give them a right-of-passage memory so many other children often take for granted.
Ms. Coffey said they could use the profits from Garbuck’s to buy homecoming tickets. She offered pizza and chicken to feed the students before the dance. And she started working on logistics and other details with parents.
Staci, meanwhile, began dreaming big, imagining what the perfect school dance night might look like and how she could make homecoming a night Londen and her class would always treasure.
Magical transformation
Keck Street sits in the shadow of Akron’s idle rubber factories. Many of the driveways are gravel. Scrolled metal security bars cover the doors of many houses.
On Saturday, just after 6 p.m. about 70 people crowded around the red carpet running down the center of Staci’s narrow front yard.
Everyone but Londen had walked the runway to Staci’s sister, Shakeena Smith, who stood with a second microphone, interviewing the students as photographers and videographers snapped photos and filmed them like celebrity paparazzi.
The runway ended with a replica Oscar statute, a mirorred plaque with each student’s picture and a hug from Ms. Coffey.
“Where’s Ms. Londen Smi-ith!” Staci called into the microphone, again sounding like Oprah.
Londen — wearing a blue taffeta dress with peacock feathers sewn on — didn’t hesitate. She walked out the door, wobbled just a bit and then took her time on the runway, dancing just a bit before Staci presented Ms. Coffey with a Heart of Gold award.
“Ms. Coffey, you are far more than a teacher,” Staci told the crowd. “You’re a friend, parent, counselor, mentor and a role model. These children idolize you.”
In the distance, a motorcycle roared.
The crowd, not knowing what to expect, turned to face the street and saw Akron’s Urban Knights Motorcycle Club coming toward them single file, leading a parade down Keck Street for Ms. Coffey’s class.
Once the neighborhood found out what Staci was planning, she said others wanted to help.
As the bikes passed, confetti exploded and showered over the crowd, catching on the fresh flower corsages and boutonnieres pinned to each of the students.
The New Generation Drill Corps followed with drums and cheerleaders, then a group of children dancing followed by two riders on horseback and a stretch Hummer limo that would carry the students, Ms. Coffey and a teaching assistant to the dance.
Staci had planned to emerge like the fairy godmother that she never had.
“Like in Cinderella, I wanted to make their dreams come true all ‘bippity, boppity boo,’ ” Staci said.
But she was too tired and too busy to strap on the wings and run a couple of blocks to where the limo was parked before the parade.
Yet her magic wasn’t lost on the students, who smiled and laughed as they poured into the swank limo built for 20.
Classmate Cati Collins of Firestone Park was so nervous leading up to homecoming, her mom, Julie Collins, decided to go dress shopping without her, buying three options, all in Cati’s favorite color — red.
Cati chose a scoop-neck, sleeveless dress with a thin belt. She made her mom promise to pick her up at school precisely at 10 p.m., the moment the dance was over.
But Saturday, having fun alongside her classmates, Cati’s anxiety waned. She changed plans with Julie and said she would ride in the limo back to Londen’s house.
It was dark when the limousine pulled away from Keck Street, escorted by the Urban Knights to homecoming.
As Staci and others packed up chairs and the red carpet, fireworks unexpectedly lit up the night sky.
“Staci, did you order those, too?” someone asked.
Everyone laughed.
No, someone else offered, those fireworks were for Staci and all that she did Saturday.
“My dream came true,” Staci said. “My dream came true.”
Amanda Garrett can be reached at 330-996-3725 or agarrett@thebeaconjournal.com.