‘Sometimes Miracles Happen’: Toy Store Owner Went to Great Lengths to Find Doll for Boy With Special Needs

Baruch Haddad, owner of the toy store “The Flying Shark” in Beersheba, received a desperate request from one of his regular customers, to find an Uncle Haim doll for his 12-year-old son, who has special needs. Although the doll was out of stock, Haddad did not give up, went to great lengths, and eventually managed to obtain the coveted doll. “The boy was over the moon, ecstatic. He said I made his year,” he says.

“On Monday morning, R., the boy’s father, contacted me and asked whether I had the Uncle Haim doll,” Haddad tells Walla Seven. “I knew it had been out of stock for several months, but I told him to give me a chance to check into it and try to find the doll for him. The chances from the outset were zero, but I said we would try, and that sometimes miracles happen. I called several of my competitors, but they didn’t have it either. I called Uncle Haim himself, but he said he had not had it for a very long time, and that the doll would be back in stock only in two months.”

“At one point I contacted the company’s distributor’s agent and asked if he could get me the doll,” the store owner continues. “I told him it was a child with special needs, a very special child whom I very much wanted to make happy. I told him that even a doll with damaged packaging or one that didn’t work would be fine, but unfortunately he didn’t have that either. He said he would keep checking and get back to me. In parallel, I suggested to the father that he put up a post on Facebook and ask whether anyone had the doll, but he felt uncomfortable doing that, so I asked my wife to post it.”

While he continued trying to track down the coveted doll, Baruch received a phone call from the same agent he had spoken with. “He told me he had found the doll in one of the stores in the city, and asked whether it would be okay for Spark Toys to give it to the boy as a gift. I told him of course it was okay, and that I would be very happy if that happened. The boy and his father went, received the doll as a gift, and the father sent me pictures, the boy was over the moon, really. The father asked to thank everyone involved in the efforts, and I passed the message on to Uncle Haim too, who asked for the boy’s name and sent him a video. He said the boy was over the moon, that he was ecstatic. He said, ‘You made his year,’ and that is a tremendous privilege for me.”

R., the boy’s father, explained to Walla Seven that the doll serves as a transitional object for his son. “He doesn’t really understand the whole story around it, but he was excited that we found the doll, no matter how or at what cost. And of course, we were very excited too.”

Haddad emphasizes that many people rallied to help find the doll. “It wasn’t just me, there were other good people around who made this happen, we were only a small part of this story. I wish everyone would understand how something small for us can be something huge for someone else.”