The Make-A-Wish Foundation began in 1980 with a mission to help fulfill the dreams of children with serious illnesses. The stories from the charity are often bittersweet as thousands of kids get to have the experience of a lifetime but their illness and struggles loom heavy. Still, the work they do is incredible and for a lot of children, the experience really is like a literal wish come true.
Many children wish to meet a favorite celebrity or character, others want to go on trips to places like Disney World but some kids use their opportunity to go all out and reach for the stars. The results have been pretty incredible.
10. A Leukemia Survivor’s Wish Was To Blow Things Up
What do 12-year-old boys like? It doesn’t matter where or when you ask this question, some answers are going to be universal. You can put money on a large number of boys who are into action movies, for instance. You know, stuff like Star Wars or the MCU. Stuff where everything is fast-paced and things blow up. And if you distill that down a little bit, you could make a good case that 12-year-old boys like stuff that blows up. And so here we are.
In 2016, a boy named Declan from Australia who was being treated for leukemia got to have his wish granted and it was a simple one. Declan wanted to make things explode.
The boy was just about finished his cancer treatments and his prognosis was good so you can look at this like it was a big, bombastic celebratory event. Like fireworks only more chaotic.
As unusual as the wish may sound, it came together with the help of both law enforcement and the military. The Australian Federal Police’s Specialist Response Group ran Declan through a hostage scenario, training with armored cars, and breaching exercises which involved him exploding doors and walls to gain entrance to buildings. One of the explosive pros said he had “quite an aptitude for it.”
Later he got to meet up with some US Marines and spend time on a police boat as well, to round out the entire experience.
9. A 13-Year-Old Used His Wish to Feed the Homeless for a Year
Every once in a while you come across a person who has a deep understanding of selflessness. It’s hard to be that way, honestly, and that’s okay. Most of us are worried about ourselves and those close to us and it’s hard to be in a position, whether that’s mentally, emotionally, or financially, to worry about a wider circle of people than that. But Adeola Abraham Olagbegi was a boy who had that wider outlook.
The 13-year-old had been diagnosed with aplastic anemia, a serious and potentially fatal condition, and received a bone marrow transplant. When Make-A-Wish presented him with the opportunity to have a wish granted, he asked if they could feed the homeless people where he lived for a year.
The foundation put together something called Abraham’s Table. Every third Saturday of the month they provided meals for the homeless in his hometown of Jackson. Each dinner provides for about 80 people.
8. A Kid Wished To Visit the Thor: Ragnarok Set and Came Up With One Of Its Most Famous Lines
There have been four Thor films in the MCU so far and Thor: Ragnarok has been hands down the most popular one. It features a memorable scene in which Thor is forced to fight in a gladiatorial arena and once he gets in; he discovers his opponent is the Hulk, who’s been missing since the end of Age of Ultron. Instead of reacting poorly, Thor celebrates and tells everyone that the Hulk is a friend from work. It’s a funny line and went over really well.
That line was not in the original script nor was it improvised by Chris Hemsworth. Instead, according to director Taika Waititi, there was a child on set as part of his Make-A-Wish wish. He got to meet Hemsworth, and the two talked about the scene. According to the story, Hemsworth asked the child what could make the scene more fun and the “friend from work” line was proposed.
7. Bob Denver Dressed as Gilligan To Let Kids Rescue Him From the Island
Gilligan’s Island was on TV from 1964 to 1967 but clearly left its mark across the ensuing decades. Star Bob Denver was tied to the character for the rest of his life and reprised it in 1992 as part of a fundraiser for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Denver, in full Gilligan costume almost 30 years later, went out on a boat with fans to be stranded on an island and then rescued by several of the kids who came along for the journey. It was probably a safe bet they’d seen a rerun or two and knew he needed a hand.
6. The Rarest Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Was From a Make-A-Wish Wish and Sold for Over $300k
Yu-Gi-Oh!, if you are not familiar, is a Japanese manga series, anime, card game, toy line, and so on and so forth. One of the most popular iterations is that card game, however, and some cards from the set can have incredible value. The rarest and most valuable card of all was part of a Make-A-Wish wish.
Back in 2005, 14-year-old Tyler Gresse asked to have his own Yu-Gi-Oh! Card. Not just any card, one made about him. The company that produces the cards fulfilled his wish and made the one-of-a-kind “Tyler The Great Warrior.”
He and his family got to meet Yu-Gi-Oh’s creator, he helped design the card and even went through the entire process of stamping and printing. No other living human had even touched the card besides Gresse.
In the world of collectibles, anything that there’s only one of automatically has value, but Tyler kept his card for 18 years, even as he overcame his extremely rare form of liver cancer. It was then he decided he might want to sell it to someone else who loved Yu-Gi-Oh! as much as he had as a kid. It ended up selling for an incredible $311,000.
5. Chris Rock Sneaked a Sex Tape to a Make-A-Wish Teen
As we’ve seen, kids have chosen a wide range of things to fulfill their wishes and, if Chris Rock is to be believed, one 15-year-old’s wish was to meet the comedian and spend some time together. It’s not entirely clear what the bulk of the visit might have entailed if it was to a movie set, a show, or just them hanging out, but there were some extras tossed in.
Rock told Jerry Seinfeld that he met with a boy and sneaked him a copy of the Pamela Anderson sex tape during the visit. The story was short and simple and also sad as he capped the tale by pointing out that the boy did not survive his cancer. Rock seemed convinced that his visit would have at least been a brief highlight before the end.
4. Ron Perlman Got Into Full Hellboy Makeup to Spend the Day With a Kid
There are a good number of comic book-related wishes being granted out there and some are more complex than others. When six-year-old Zachary wanted to meet the real-life Hellboy back in 2012, actor Ron Perlman was more than willing to help.
Hellboy’s makeup involves some extremely complex prosthetics if you want to do it right and, of course, everyone did. So Perlman, who was 62 at the time, went back to the same team that turned him into Hellboy for both of Guillermo Del Toro’s movies and underwent the full four-hour process to transform into the character.
After meeting Hellboy, Zachary also got to undergo a slightly less complicated makeup process to become Hellboy himself.
3. A 17-Year-Old Wanted to Hunt a Bear
It’s rare that a Make-A-Wish wish causes controversy, but it has happened. In 1996, a 17-year-old boy named Erik who had cancer had a wish he wanted to fulfill. He wanted to go to Alaska and hunt a bear.
As you can imagine, animal rights activists were not amused. One offered to give the boy, who had a brain tumor, a camera to shoot pictures instead. Actor Pierce Brosnan invited the boy and his family to the set of the movie he was filming at the time as an alternative.
Erik came from a hunting family so the act was something of significance to him. Despite protests, some of which got rather ugly, Erik went on the trip with his dad and then had to arrange a second trip after the first was unsuccessful. The second time they succeeded and killed a bear. He was able to enjoy several hunting trips for a few years after but sadly passed away from cancer at age 21.
2. San Francisco Was Turned Into Gotham For a 5-Year-Old
Back in 2013, there was a Make-A-Wish that captured the hearts of the internet and became an international story. A five-year-old boy with cancer named Miles Scott wanted just one thing – to obliterate Gotham’s worst criminals the way only the caped crusader could. He wanted to be Batman. And the Make-A-Wish Foundation pulled it off.
Thousands of people lined the streets of San Francisco to cheer on Batkid as the city was turned into Gotham for a day. Clark Kent literally wrote the front page story of the San Francisco Chronicle that detailed how Batkid saved the city.
Miles started his day with a plea from the mayor to come and save the day. He hit the streets and saved a woman tied to the cable car tracks; he apprehended the Riddler, paused for lunch, stopped the Penguin, and then went to city hall and got the key to the city. All while dressed as Batman, of course.
Ten years later, Miles is cancer free and living a less crime-fighting life with his family.
1. John Cena Has Granted Over 650 Make-A-Wish Wishes
Are you a John Cena fan? If not, you should be. Wrestler and actor Cena is not just killing it as Peacemaker in the DCU, he’s also absolutely dedicated to being there for fans. Not that it’s a competition, but if it was, he’d be sweeping the field with his wish-granting presence. He’s granted over 650 Make-A-Wish wishes with no sign of slowing down. If a kid wants to see that man, he makes time.
Cena hit his record-breaking milestone, that’s more wishes than anyone in history, back in 2022. It became a big story at the time and cynical folks might make a play for this being clout-chasing. After all, it sure makes Cena look like a good guy and we live in a world where doing good things can be considered bad if people think you’re doing it for attention, which is weird at the very least. But if that was a fear, rest easy!
WWE’s Paul Heyman has gone on record to point out that all of this publicity was not Cena’s idea. He didn’t want to make it a public thing because he didn’t want the recognition since it wasn’t about him. The WWE had to convince him to make a story out of it on the grounds that, if people knew how much time he devoted, it would encourage others to get involved with their time and money.