Community Corner

Los Altos Girl is 6,000th Make-A-Wish Grantee

Avery Henderson, 3, will be the guest of honor at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo as the 6,000th child that Make-A-Wish Greater Bay Area has helped.

 

Three-year-old Avery Henderson wants to pet a dolphin and build sand castles.

And the organization that is in the business of making wishes come true for children with life-threatening illnesses, indeed, has plans to give the Los Altos girl a dolphin-and-sand-castle experience in San Diego.

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But first Avery gets to be the guest of honor at a special event. She is 6,000th child that the Make-A-Wish Greater Bay Area has delighted in 28 years of wish-granting to 6,000 children with life-threatening medical conditions.

Make a Wish has invited all the children and families to a day-long celebration at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo on June 30. Her wish for dolphin and sandcastles will be fulfilled in San Diego next month.

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Avery has been finished with treatments for Wilm’s tumor for nine months, and is full of energy, according to Make-A-Wish. “I’m a big girl now because I’m three and I don’t have cancer! I can run now because I don’t have cancer!” Avery has told the Make-A-Wish representatives. 

"We are already looking forward to reaching our 7,000th wish,” said Make-A-Wish executive director Patricia Wilson.

It took 18 years for Make-A-Wish reach its first milestone of 3,000 children whose wishes were granted. It reached 6,000 in ten years. Make-A-Wish and Six Flags Discovery Kingdom have partnered since the early days, including Make-A-Wish’s 2,000th wish celebration at the park.

To mark the occasion, Make-a-Wish went back to interview the some of the children it has helped, and wrote the following about how they are doing now:

Ten years ago, in 2002, Matthew Coe was the 3,000th wish recipient. The five-year-old Benicia boy had a serious heart defect called a single ventricle that required several surgeries. After the final surgery, he was granted his wish to visit his uncle Lucas in New York that he missed terribly. Now 14 and entering high school in the fall, Matthew continues to take daily medication and has his heart tested yearly. But he can still enjoy playing golf, flag football and basketball, for which his team named him the most inspirational player. 

“Matthew continues to have a very special appreciation for having been granted his wish. He has repeatedly written about it for school assignments when he is asked about the most significant events in his life,” say his parents, Cathy and Greg.

Four years later, in 2006, we passed our next milestone—4,000 wishes. Nine-year-old Chris Laub from Tiburon was our 4,000th wish recipient. The active Little Leaguer had been diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia the previous year. His wish was to attend the 2007 MLB All-Star Game, which was to be played at what was then SBC Park in San Francisco. San Francisco Giant Barry Bonds was so inspired by Chris’ urging him to return to baseball after finishing surgery, that he did, in fact, make his return to the Major Leagues, and was one of the special guests who honored Chris at the 4,000th Wish Celebration at SBC Park.

Chris is now about to enter his junior year in high school, where he is in the Honor Society and captain of the varsity golf team. Four years cancer-free, Chris is still an avid baseball fan and will be joining Make-A-Wish Greater Bay Area’s youth board in the fall. Say his parents, David and Margie, about his wish, “To see our son as happy as he was made our dream come true; watching him experience magical moments, amongst the hardest time in his young life made us so thankful for his wish.”

Every once in a while, a wish child is so motivated to help others, that he or she will use their wish to give back. That is exactly what David Godfrey from San Jose, our 5,000th wish recipient, did for his wish in 2009. The 14-year-old leukemia sufferer loved to research renewable energy and create science projects that he hoped would help affect the environment. So for his wish, David went on an “environmental sojourn” that included a trip to the Green Business Awards, a ride in a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, a meeting with the former Lawrence Berkeley Lab Director and now U.S. Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, a visit to the NASA Ames Research Center, a trip to a Geothermal energy company and a ride in a Tesla roadster, among other things. At the end, David told Make-A-Wish Greater Bay Area executive director Patricia Wilson, “This wish was so much fun that I only wish I could do it again!” Now a 17-year-old high school junior, David served on the Make-A-Wish youth board and would like to study mechanical or materials engineering in college.


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