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Community steps up on Halloween after 7-year-old has wheelchair stolen

A Jacksonville mom is searching for answers after someone stole the wheelchair from her 7-year-old, who has special needs.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Maria Atwater's love for being a mother of four radiates. Of her four children, seven-and-a-half-year-old Christopher is who she calls her Superman.

His superpower is what his mom describes as her son's spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy with extreme high tone. Despite his abilities, Atwater said Christopher is still a child who loves every bit of Halloween.

"We've been dressing up his wheelchairs for years now," Atwater said. "We get creative with it, we enjoy it. Halloween is one of our favorite times because of the dress up."

As she prepared for one of her family's most exciting holidays, what happened to her last week turned what would have been a happy moment into something else.

"I left Jacksonville and went to a North Little Rock beauty supply store for some Halloween makeup stuff," Atwater said. "They didn't have what I needed. I left there... called first and found this other one over here, off of Roosevelt and Broadway, so I went into that one for what I needed. They had it come back out about maybe 15 minutes later, and that's when it was gone."

She told us that in the six years of driving around with his bright green wheelchair, she would have never imagined this happening to her. As a mother, her heart dropped knowing that her son's mobility was taken away.

"He was stuck at home," Atwater said. "When they stole his wheelchair, they stole his legs and his lifeline. I was sad, mad. Sadly, one of my first thoughts was that my kid wouldn't be able to trick or treat.

Atwater's instincts were to reach out to police for assistance but after a few days passed, she decided to turn to social media.

"I made a post on my page... then shared it on his page," Atwater said. "Christopher's Super World got more attention than I ever imagined."

That's when people in several communities came together to ensure Christopher received his lifeline and Halloween again. Families, mothers, and others offered to help out.

On Wednesday, a man donated a wheelchair, and iCAN in Little Rock offered to adjust Christopher's size until his new wheelchair arrived.

For now, Christopher is rocking his "Kiss-topher" costume in style for Halloween, but Atwater said her fight is not over.

She told us that the responses left her puzzled when she shared her story in several Facebook groups. A number of mothers and caregivers shared their own personal stories, showing that Atwater was not the only one.

"Not only did I find a bunch of others that live in Arkansas, [but I] also found a bunch of others all over the United States that had also had equipment stolen in the past from their vehicles, from their front porches," Atwater said. "Like, yeah, my wheelchair was stolen."

Through these experiences and hers, she said that her fight would not stop after Christopher received his new wheelchair. 

"I'm not still trying to find it just for my son, for who did it," Atwater said. "I'm trying to do it for everyone that they could potentially still in the future, like if it's gonna happen next."

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