Many princes present flowers to this year’s Make-a-Wish kid Ellie in the kick off assembly at the end of October.
The True Importance of Make A Wish Donations
Alta students have an amazing opportunity to make a difference in the lives of children struggling with diseases. Let's dig deep and many wishes come true.
Most people don’t understand that unless you have experienced the inexplicable harsh conditions of being a Make-a-Wish kid, or even being in the family of a Make-a-Wish kid, you really can’t relate to the struggle they go through. This holiday season, finding the charity to dig deep into your pockets and donate to these families helps more than you would think.
The Make-a-Wish foundation focuses on granting these kid’s a wish to give them even just a little hope in their condition, and hope for their future. Make-a-Wish focuses on children with ‘critical illnesses’ that are demanding and life threatening, from heart defects such as tetralogy of fallot, to osteoporosis bone cancer. Make-a-Wish grants their ‘wishes’ by letting children experience something powerful that helps distract from their deadly diseases. Wishes can be one of the 5:
I wish to have, I wish to go, I wish to be, I wish to meet, and I wish to give.
Make-a-Wish kids usually wish to go somewhere; typically U.S. kids wish to go to Disney-World. Penny Coleman a MAW volunteer says Make-a-Wish is an amazing organization, that blesses thousands of families and children every single year.
Two examples of how much Make-a-Wish effects the families of the kids:
A 17 year old boy diagnosed with osteoporosis, a deadly bone cancer, had a tumor thriving in his calf, and was certainly fatal. After Make-a-Wish insisted on a presence in his life, he was able to visit both Disney World, and Sea World before his last surgery. Amazingly the doctors operating on the boy removed the tumor, graphed skin from his left healthy leg to his right diseased leg. This fragile 17 year old boy has not only grown back a full head of hair, but survived 15 years since the operation, and walks with barely a limp.
The process of bringing a child into this world is already worrisome, but more so when you find that your said child needs to have an immediate open heart operation. This operation would be the first of many operations to repair the hole in a little girls heart valve. Doctors cut through her skin and bones down her sternum desperately trying to solve the problem of her heart, leaving a scar that she will never be able to heal. Make-a-Wish maybe couldn’t have stopped the pain, or the surgeries but they could bring some hope into a little girls life. Through a long awaited vacation to Disney-World and after meeting all the Disney Princess’, that small amount of hope was just enough to keep this little girl moving forward. On February 14, 2022 she had her last operation that she will need for another ten years. 22 years, she has lived with her condition, and maybe all thanks to a beautiful heart and a wish.
Make-a-Wish brings hope and joy to hundreds of thousands of families each year, making them eternally grateful for the happiness Make-A-Wish has brought to their lives. Instead of being stuck in a hospital bed, they can be transported to somewhere magical, even in the same building.
This holiday season, take advantage of the opportunity to make a difference and donate to one of the many fundraising opportunities that will go towards making Ellie’s wish come true.