Jacob’s ladder
Jacob Dominguez, 23, plays on the playground at the Friendship Circle’s after-school hangout at Meadows Elementary School. Photo by Alene Tchekmedyian
Jacob Dominguez clutched the chains of his swing as he rocked back and forth on it at the Meadows Elementary School playground in Manhattan Beach last week.
The 23-year-old chuckled as his friend, Meghan Smith, a seventh-grader at American Martyrs School, made funny faces and joked while pushing him on the swing. He wore a bright red T-shirt that read “GotFriends.com” and jean shorts.
“Do you want to play the run game?” Meghan asked, after Jacob – all 4-foot-11, 138 pounds of him – hopped off the swing.
“Yeah!” he cheered, among six other kids who looked equally excited to play the game.
“Three, two, one…” Smith counted. “Get him!” The kids, clad in American Martyrs uniforms, gray T-shirts and navy shorts, ran after Jacob, through playground’s obstacle course.
The kids were at the weekly, after-school hangout program organized by the Friendship Circle of the South Bay, the local chapter of a national non-profit group that provides services and activities for children with special needs.
About 30 volunteers from American Martyrs School gather weekly at Meadows with Friendship Circle members for an hour of games, snacks and socializing. Some kids were playing parachute, others eating fruit roll-ups and chips, and many were hopping around the playground’s obstacle course.
The Friendship Circle also offers other programs for special needs children and their families, including karate classes, life skills classes and parent support groups. The program serves 700 special needs families, and has about 1,200 teen volunteers.
The organization will be holding its third annual Skechers Pier to Pier Friendship Walk on Sunday, Oct. 30. Last year, 4,000 participants walked 3.4 miles – from the Manhattan Beach pier to the Hermosa Beach pier and back – and raised $380,000. The funds were donated to the Friendship Circle and the education foundations of Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, Torrance, Palos Verdes and El Segundo.
Palos Verdes Peninsula High School cheerleader high-fives Magnus Cull, as he rides on the shoulders of his dad, Nick, at the 2010 Skechers Friendship Walk. Photo courtesy of Sketchers Friendship Walk.
“These kids are the great equalizer,” said Nancy Dominguez, Jacob’s mother. “They knock everybody off their financial perch, their political perch…and we’re all the same, all people struggling to take care of family. The Friendship Circle is the thing that’s assisting us.”
A fragile life
Twenty-three years ago, Nancy Dominguez was shocked when she found out she was pregnant. She was 41 and already had two adult children – a son and daughter from a previous marriage.
Already engaged, Nancy and Jim Dominguez were married shortly after learning the news.
Five months into the pregnancy, an amniotic fluid test, or a medical test that detects chromosomal abnormalities, showed that her baby had Down syndrome.
“Fifty percent of miscarriages are Down’s babies,” she recalled the doctor saying. “You have a right, as a woman in the state of California, to terminate this.”
But, Dominguez felt kicks. Her baby was moving inside her womb. Before making a decision, she wanted to know: How would the baby be terminated?
She and her daughter, then a high school senior, sat in the exam room as the doctor explained the procedure. “(My daughter) turned to the doctor and said, ‘No, no, we’re having this baby. Mom, were not going to do that. That’s not fair, that’s not right,’” she recalled. “And I knew.”
Jacob Dominguez was born at Little Company of Mary two weeks past his due date, on August 18, 1988, through Caesarean section. The doctors wouldn’t risk inducing labor – they didn’t have time. “We’ll lose him,” Nancy recalled the doctor saying.
In minutes, Nancy was in the emergency room getting spinal anesthesia.
“They turned me back and (the doctor) started cutting. And I started screaming, and the anesthesiologist said, ‘Wait, wait, wait, we need at least 60 seconds more for it to completely take effect,’” Nancy recalled. “And she goes, ‘We don’t have time.’”
Jacob wasn’t breathing at birth – he had gone into cardiac arrest. “I felt like I was leaving too,” Nancy said, about the moments after Jacob’s birth. “Within a minute, I hear this crying…I got to see his face, and I fell in love. It was like, I know you. I said, ‘I’ve waited 41 years for you.’”
He had his first surgery at 18 months old. His doctors wanted to wait until he weighed at least 12 pounds before operating on his heart, Nancy said. “I remember sitting up next to your crib every night, all night, for 18 months,” Nancy told Jacob. “I was so afraid that he was going to die.”
To teach Jacob to walk, Nancy would tie his hands to a toy grocery cart and hold his knees behind him – he was nearly four years old when he started to walk.
Now 23, Jacob graduated last year from Mira Costa High School, where he spent eight years – four to finish high school and four transitional years. In 2010, he was voted “most unforgettable character.”
In a yearbook page dedicated to him for his award, he wrote, “My Costa friends and teachers are the reason I get up every morning to “Rock & Roll” and do I ever. I love to make people happy and laugh. It is the mission God gave me and I love it.” His tribute continued, “Where would my classmates and I be without Friendship Circle, but better yet, where would you be without us!”
Jacob now works as a program assistant for the Friendship Circle, where he helps organize community and school-wide programs. Jason Flentye, program director of the Friendship Circle, said Jacob is his “right hand man.” “He’s there to help me whether with something as simple as giving me a hand, carrying something, or sharing how important Friendship Circle is to him and the community he lives in,” Flentye said.
“We took a child that never had a friend, always sat by himself, and he became the popular kid at Mira Costa,” said Rabbi Yossi Mintz, in a Friendship Circle video.
The Dominguez family lives in a quaint, one-story Hermosa Beach home with a white picket gate at the front entrance. Family pictures line the shelves, next to ceramic pots of different sizes, shapes, and colors that Jacob crafted in his high school ceramics class.
Up until five years ago, Nancy worked at the Local Yolk in Manhattan Beach. Jacob’s dad, Jim, retired three years ago, after a long career in the military and law enforcement.
Raising Jacob has taken its toll on Jacob’s parents. “The biggest impact on my life has come from having a child whose 100 percent dependent on me, forever. For as long as he lives, for as long as I live,” Nancy said.
Because of his oral and sensory issues, Jacob only eats baby food, Nancy said. Sometimes, she’d like to go to bed when she feels sleepy or wake up when she feels rested. “The things that we kind of take for granted,” she said. “Being a mommy at 64…is kind of wearing.”
Twice a year the Friendship Circle provides Parents’ Night Out, during which the parents go out to dinner while the kids eat pizza and watch a movie with the volunteers.
Jacob takes karate lessons through the Friendship Circle with Flentye, who has a black belt in karate. One afternoon, Jacob, now a yellow belt in karate, practiced the move, “kata number one,” in his living room with his dad, Jim. The two stepped forward and hooked their arms in front of their faces, blocking inward. They repeated the steps multiple times, forward and backward. Later, Jim took Jacob to get a haircut – a special activity the pair has done together for 10 years.
Jacob Dominguez, 23, on stage at the 2010 Skechers Friendship Walk, addressing a crowd of 4,000. Photo courtesy of Sketchers Friendship Walk
At last year’s friendship walk, Skechers CEO Michael Greenberg introduced Jacob to the crowd during his speech. Jacob marched on stage and took the microphone.
“Thank you for coming to my party,” Jacob said, in front of 4,000 people. The crowd erupted in applause and cheers. “I did it!” he yelled, raising his hands in the air triumphantly.
Greenberg jumped at the opportunity to help start the walk years ago – working with children with special needs is close to home for him. Growing up, Greenberg worked with special needs kids for three years as an elementary school student in Boston. “They became my friends,” he said. “It wasn’t about my assisting them, it was about my accepting children with needs.”
While the Friendship Circle is focused on patience and acceptance, it teaches discipline as well, Flentye said. When a member acts out or doesn’t follow directions, they may get sent home. “It’s a lot of holding kids to be mature, shake hands with people, say hello, apologize, realize if you offended somebody,” Flentye said. “We definitely hold the kids to be accountable members of the community just the same way as everybody else.”
And the parents appreciate it. “The parents are going, ‘Jason, will you come to our house?’” Nancy said, with a laugh.
A lasting impact
Jacob’s birth inspired Nancy’s daughter, Jacob’s half sister, to pursue nursing school at Loma Linda University. “She used to take Jacob in to share when he was an infant, during classes on special needs births,” Nancy said. She’s now a nurse at a children’s hospital in San Diego.
Nicole Rosen, Mira Costa junior and Friendship Circle volunteer, and Michael Geresi take time out during a Friendship Circle basketball camp. Photo courtesy of Jason Flentye
While at Mira Costa, Jacob served as the equipment manager for the girl’s soccer team. He went to every practice, every game, and every away-game bus ride, said Nicole Rosen, a striking Mira Costa junior with long blonde hair, who’s played on the school’s varsity soccer team since ninth grade.
For Rosen, spending time with Friendship Circle members is like any other afternoon with friends. Her best memories with the program include talking with Jacob’s parents about their friendship. She recalled one event during which Nancy thanked her profusely for hanging out with her son. Rosen said the relationship is a two-way street – Jacob is her true friend, not just a volunteering opportunity. “All we’re doing is spending time with them,” Rosen said.
When Rosen first started volunteering with the Friendship Circle, she noticed Jacob was among the quieter kids in the group. “Now he’s the kid that will not stop talking,” she said, giggling. “He makes everything bothering you that day go away.”
For more information about or to register for the Skechers Friendship Walk, visit www.skechersfriendshipwalk.com. Registration costs $25 online and $30 on the day of the event. All proceeds are donated to the Friendship Circle or one of six South Bay education foundations.