It’s Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week, and we’re taking this occasion to celebrate the positivity and power of wishes on our wish kids! Meet grown-up wish kid Andre … You make it all possible when you help to grant wishes for children fighting critical illnesses.

Andre was born with hydrocephalus, but he wasn’t diagnosed for two years. At that time, the medical teams began putting in shunts to help drain the fluid from around his brain. He was constantly in the hospital; sometimes, for six months at a time. The hospital became his second home.

Andre’s family tried to stay positive but were never sure what the real outcome would be, especially after so many shunts had failed. At one point, Andre had gone blind and had developed muscular issues from the pressure on his brain.

By the time Andre was 7 years old, he’d had 22 operations. No one was sure what was ahead. All the while, his dad worked two jobs to pay the hospital bills and his mom was by his bedside … even with two other kids at home.  

When a nurse made introductions, Make-A-Wish^® entered Andre’s life and that of his family. He wished for a “giant 8th birthday party” and by the time it got rolling, there were 100 people in his backyard: family, friends, and the nurses and doctors that had become his second family.  

There was a clown, a magician, and a 55-piece marching band, and the backyard was filled with balloons and party decorations.  

Andre says, “Someone just recently told me they remember that on that day, I went from a kid that looked sick and was unemotional at the beginning of the party, to a kid who was overwhelmed with joy and excitement by the time the party ended. That party turned out to be the greatest day of my life at that point.”

Such is the power of a wish. And you can do the same – create a turning point in their illness and their life – for another child fighting a critical illness when you make a tax-deductible gift now, in honor of Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week.

Wishfully, 

Make-A-Wish