After granting more than 1,500 wishes, the Central New York chapter of the Make-A-Wish Foundation celebrated its 30th year anniversary at an event on Jan. 20 at the chapter’s office in East Syracuse.
“Three decades, that’s a long time,” said Susan Tormey, a founding member. “I have to say it’s because of the generosity of the community that we’ve been able to do it.”
In 1985, the first organizational meeting for the CNY Make-A-Wish was held, making it the third chapter in the state and the 33rd in the country.
In that first year, 11 wishes were granted.
“I’m very proud to be a co-founder of this organization and I’m so proud of all of the volunteers,” said Don Hamilton, another founding member.
Make-A-Wish grants wishes to children under 18 who have been diagnosed with terminal illness. Generally, the wishes granted fall into one of four categories: to go somewhere, to have something, to meet someone and to be someone.
The CNY chapter of Make-A-Wish serves more than 15 counties in the area, including Broome, Cayuga, Chenango, Cortland, Herkimer, Jefferson, Lewis, Madison, Oneida, Onondaga, Oswego, Otsego, St. Lawrence, Tioga and Tompkins counties.
At the 30th year anniversary event, grown-up “wish kid” Nikki Bronner talked about her experience getting a wish granted after she had been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease at 16. Her wish, which was granted at age 18 because she had been too ill to have her wish granted when she was referred to Make-A-Wish, was to have the living room of her first apartment furnished.
“I have to say Make-A-Wish made a huge impact on my family,” Bronner said. “We needed them at the time and they came in to bring the joy back into our life. The day of my wish, it was the best day of my life. I felt like a rock star, I couldn’t believe these people were doing this for me.”
In 2011, Bronner got involved in the volunteer aspect of the non-profit by organizing a flash mob at Carousel Center and raised nearly $9,000 to help grant a wish for a fellow wish kid.
Today, the average cost of a wish today is around $10,000 and Make-A-Wish funds and organizes all aspects of a wish to make it come true, according to Diane Kuppermann, president and CEO of the CNY chapter.
In 2014, the chapter granted 74 wishes, and they hope to increase that number to 90 wishes in 2015, she said.
To learn more about this chapter of Make-A-Wish, visit cny.wish.org.
Hayleigh Gowans is a reporter for Eagle Newspapers. She can be reached at [email protected].
