A little bit of help, and the Blanchets can take it from there
Four-year-old Logan Blanchet flings himself over the top of a small couch where his mother is sitting and lands in her lap.
Donna Blanchet quickly embraces her son — a dead ringer for Macaulay Culkin in “Home Alone” –so tightly that his knees are pressed against his chest.
“Logan’s my miracle child,” the single mother says, recounting how she was not allowed to touch her boy for a month after he was born addicted to methadone. Donna Blanchet was prescribed the drug to help break a heroin and crack habit she fed until she was seven-and-a-half months pregnant.
A mother’s touch, no matter how loving, would only have worsened the withdrawal pain wracking Logan’s tiny body as doctors supervised his detoxification.
Donna Blanchet visited her son every day, drinking him in from a chair in his hospital room and begging God to let her take home a healthy baby.
She was trying hard and was so close — this close – to proving herself the clear-minded mother Logan deserved.
She just needed a little help.
Today, Logan is a boy full of grins and heart who has trouble enunciating some words because of a hearing problem that went undiagnosed for the first two years of his life.
He gets some help from speech and hearing therapists at one of Cincinnati Union Bethel’s Early Learning Academies and his mother, now 40 and nearly five years free of drugs, works with him at home.
The Blanchets live under the sloping ceiling of an attic apartment in Westwood and it’s not until Logan starts struggling with a three-syllable word that begins with a “p,” that you notice how dark and cramped it is.
Finally the word emerges: “Popsicles.”
Logan wants to explain how he likes to hand out the sweet treats when he, his mother and members of their church take food every Wednesday to the homeless in downtown Cincinnati.
“Logan has gotten close to one of the gentlemen, Lonnie, who lives in a tent by the highway,” Donna Blanchet said.
“Every day after school, Logan asks if we get to go see Lonnie today.
“Logan is an amazing little boy,” his mom said. “He makes my heart smile daily.”
She is working two jobs now — at The Salvation Army and The Redmoor event house – and it puts her just past food stamp eligibility.
She would like to cut back on her hours so she would have time to get Logan additional professional help and to connect with a support group.
Donna Blanchet thinks she could get a single, better-paying job if she could come up with the $900 she owes Brown Mackie College – Cincinnati, where she studied to be a medical assistant.
Blanchet graduated in 2014 but says the college will not release her transcripts until she pays her debt.
Also, a laptop computer would go a long way toward engaging the mind of her bright little boy.
“I just want him to have the best opportunities, to be the best he can be and not have to suffer any more than he has because of my past,” Blanchet said.
Logan, like so many other children in Greater Cincinnati, needs your help this Christmas season. His family is counting on Enquirer and Cincinnati.com readers to donate what they can to support the Wish List, the annual holiday fundraising drive coordinated with the United Way of Greater Cincinnati.
Readers may donate to the Wish List through a coupon in the newspaper or online at www.uwgc.org/wishlist.
Logan is trying hard and he’s so close — this close – to a breakthrough.
He just needs a little help.
The Blanchets’ landlord has said they can move into the roomy, high-ceilinged apartment on the first floor of their rental home if they could find a way to pay off a $1,300 gas and electric bill.
The mother’s and son’s daily climbs up and down the steep stairway to their home puts them literally inches away from the place where there’d be room to invite over friends and where Logan would in coming years have light from four huge living room windows to throw the pages of his textbooks into relief.
“Once I get the big things taken care of, it will open doors,” Donna Blanchet said.
Donna and Logan Blanchet are trying hard and they’re so close — this close – to getting some breathing room in their lives.
They just need a little help.
Support
the Wish List
The Enquirer and the United Way of Greater Cincinnati are raising money for families in need through the annual Wish List campaign.
The goal: $175,000. Amount readers have donated through Friday: $27,475.
Stories are publishing all month in The Enquirer and at Cincinnati.com about our neighbors in need, including one who needed a new furnace and another who needed help recovering from a fire that devastated their home.
How to give
The Enquirer proudly promotes the annual Wish List fundraising effort in conjunction with the United Way of Greater Cincinnati. We know how caring and giving our readers are, and the Wish List presents each of you with the opportunity to dig down and find it in your hearts to lend a helping hand.
• To provide support for families and the nonprofit agencies that work with them, just visit www.uwgc.org/wishlist.
• Can’t find the dollars to give this time around? No problem, you can give in other ways. For instance, find a nonprofit organization you can assist through volunteering. One place to look is the United Way's Volunteer Connection at www.uwgc.org/volunteer/ways-to-volunteer.
• Or, simply share this Wish List story on your Facebook or Twitter page to bring it to the attention of more potential helping hands. Doing this will help your own network of family and friends recognize the very real needs in our community – needs each of us can help address.