finediony New Jersey news: girls

Showing posts with label girls. Show all posts

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Girls don't receive prom dresses days before big dance

WAYNE, New Jersey (WABC) -- Just days from the big dance, teens in one New Jersey community say a dress shop took their money and didn't deliver.

It's turned some girl's dream night into a nightmare situation.

Samantha Aparo is getting ready for prom. It's stressful enough and the last thing she needed to worry about is not having a dress.

"Three weeks went by and no calls nothing. We started going by every day and nothing," she said.

Samantha is just one of many teens who ordered and paid in full for a dress at Red Carpet Pageant and Prom in Wayne.

It didn't take long for her to realize something was not right.

"Just not even answering the phone or the door or something," she adds.

The store's owner Patricia Dowling wouldn't return phone calls and recently reported a robbery at her store of more than 40 dresses. But there have been other financial problems.

"It's not the money I'll take care of that. It it's these other girls who don't have a dress," adds Frank Davis.

Davis's daughter Mariah worked at Red Carpet for months and wasn't getting paid so she quit.

He says Dowling has Cancer.

Eyewitness News called all of the numbers on the door. One was not in service and nobody answered the other.

Samantha is lucky. A company called http://www.promgirl.com/ heard about her prom problem and offered to help out.

She now has a dress and learned an important life lesson.

"Make sure you check up because you can't just order someone and trust that it's gonna happen," she says.

---
Get Eyewitness News Delivered

Facebook | Twitter | Newsletters | Text Alerts

(Copyright ©2012 WABC-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)
Get more New Jersey News »

new jersey, new jersey news, phil lipof
// perform JavaScript after the document is scriptable.OTV.common.modules.promoCarousel.promoCarouselInit("/wabc/xml?id=5758260&ptnr=promoCarousel");

View the original article here

Monday, December 5, 2011

Visa approved for girl's bone marrow transplant

Web produced by Jennifer Matarese, Eyewitness NewsNEWARK, N.J. (WABC) -- There's hope for a little girl battling Leukemia. Federal authorities have given her sister permission to come to the U.S. from El Salvador because she's a bone marrow transplant match for Yarelis Bonilla.

Federal authorities have given her sister permission to come to the U.S. from El Salvador because she's a bone marrow transplant match for Yarelis Bonilla.

It was an important announcement in the life of a little girl who's fighting a form of Leukemia that's killing her.

"The victory of common sense over bureaucracy," Sen. Robert Menendez said.

A Bone Marrow transplant that she so desperately needs is closer to becoming a reality now that her sister, the only perfect match, was given the green light by the U.S. government to make the trip from El Salvador to Newark's Beth Israel Medical Center for the surgery.

"I always say, the human heart is bigger than any immigration law and we've got the government to do what is right," Sen. Menendez said.

But getting the government to move on the issue took the Senator and others pushing.

In September, the State Department denied Gissele Bonilla's visa request, not once but twice.

Finally, after costly delays the Department of Homeland Security granted the 7-year-old something called Humanitarian Parole.

It gives her 3-months in the U.S. enough time for the surgery that will give her little sister the transplant she needs.

"Without it she wouldn't have any chance at all. With this she has a chance," said Dr. Peri Kamalakar, Yarelis' doctor.

Earlier this week when Eyewitness News visited Yarelis she was in good spirits.

She was drawing a self portrait.

But on this night, the picture is different as the chemotherapy is taking a toll.

Her father says they were desperate as they waited for the government to act in their favor.

Now, Yarelis Bonilla's family is hopeful that the little girl who likes to draw will soon be the picture of good health.

Her sister should be cleared to travel sometime next week. Doctors hope to perform the transplant in January.

new jersey, cancer, immigration, new jersey news, jeff pegues

View the original article here

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

DCF involved in dead NJ girl's case

By SAMANTHA HENRYNEWARK -- State child welfare officials determined allegations of child abuse to be unfounded on four separate visits to a New Jersey home where a child was found dead over the weekend from severe malnutrition and an untreated leg fracture.

Eight-year-old Christina Glenn was pronounced dead at the scene by medics who responded with police Sunday afternoon to a report of a child not breathing. An autopsy showed she died from severe malnutrition and a fractured femur that had not been treated or attended to.

Her mother, 30-year-old Venette Ovilde, a Haitian national from Irvington, has been charged with aggravated manslaughter and endangering the welfare of a child.

Ovilde's roommate, Myriam Janvier, 23, also originally from Haiti, has been charged with child endangerment.

Prosecutors did not know if the women have retained lawyers yet for a first court appearance scheduled for next week.

Glenn's 7-year-old sister and 6-year-old brother were removed from the home and hospitalized because they suffered from malnutrition and other injuries, authorities said. The children remained hospitalized Tuesday.

A report on the case from the New Jersey Department of Children and Families shows the agency was first contacted in March 2006 on an allegation that Glenn's mother neglected her. A month later, they investigated a complaint that the child's mother physically abused her. Both incidents were determined by workers to be unfounded, but the case remained open for supervision and service until March 2007.

In January 2008, the agency received a new complaint that the mother had beaten her child after the girl wet her bed. An investigation determined the allegation to be unfounded. And in April 2008, allegations that the mother physically abused her three children and left them unattended were also determined by child welfare authorities to be unfounded. The case was closed on May 1, 2008.

Agency spokeswoman Lauren Kidd said the Department of Children and Families was conducting "a thorough investigation of our history with the family and these incidents, as we do with all child deaths."

---
Do you have something to add to this story? Click here to contact Eyewitness News.

new jersey, newark, child death, child abuse, new jersey news

View the original article here