Our speaker this week was Debbie Hoskins from 'Make a Wish New Zealand'. Since 1986 her organisation has been making 'wish journeys' with various families who have had young ones with critical medical conditions and between the ages of 3 and 17. They have a team who analyse applications and meet with the families to see if their child’s request can be achieved and, if so, how. They attempt to make the wish special in some way. The average cost of a wish is $4,000 but several are much higher. Whilst several of the children have passed away, since their wish was undertaken, approximately 80% survive cancer related illnesses especially and are very thankful for what the Make A Wish Team have achieved for them.
Some examples that she gave included a child who wanted to experience a hot air balloon trip. It so happened, that at that time of year, the only hot air balloon operation was in Arrowtown. The family were flown to Queenstown, stayed most of the time in an Air B & B and took part in many Queenstown Tourism activities including the Hot Air Balloon flight over Arrowtown. Grace was pain free and her Mum didn’t need sleeping pills during the entire time here. Unfortunately Grace passed away on 5 October but her family were incredibly grateful to the Make A Wish Team.
Another example was a Bangladesh family based in New Zealand. Their son was mad keen on cricket. His wish was to see his Grandmother. She was flown to New Zealand and, whilst here, both of them and their family were VIP’s with the Black Caps and the Bangladesh Cricket team when Bangladesh was touring New Zealand.
One very sick child with cancer related problems wished to have a cell phone. During the initial investigations with the family it was found that, whilst he was in hospital, he wanted to keep in touch with his Grandfather. Rather than just giving him a cell phone, they arranged to fly his Grandfather to the hospital so that he could present his Grandson with the cell phone along with other gifts that they had obtained.
Another amazing example was the wish of a child to meet Barack Obama. Whilst nothing had been heard from the White House for some time, a message was received to say that President Obama was able to meet with this child and family in Washington DC on a particular date. All stops were pulled out and, to the delight of the child and the family involved, that encounter took place. More importantly, when Barack Obama visited New Zealand, he offered the child and the family tickets to his special event in Auckland or to meet with him in his hotel. They took the second option. On their arrival, the then USA Past President was in full talks with other individuals. As soon as he saw the family, he immediately broke away to spend time with them.
This was a great and passionate talk from Debbie and well received by all attendees. I’m sure that we are going to hear more about 'Make a Wish New Zealand' and an activity involving walking the Great Wall of China in the near future.