Students help make a wish

Michael Miller

Members of the Corona del Mar High School Make-A-Wish Club can rest

easy tonight. Thanks to their efforts, so can a complete stranger.

Last March, the Make-A-Wish Foundation donated a special bed to a

4-year-old Costa Mesa boy named Andrew, who has cerebral palsy.

Andrew, whose identity the foundation has withheld, asked for a bed

with safeguards to protect him from hitting the floor if he rolled

over in his sleep.

The bill for the project came to $4,000 -- an amount the Corona

del Mar High club had spent the year raising. On Friday, the

foundation presented a plaque to the students to recognize them for

officially sponsoring the gift.

“I heard maybe three weeks ago about who the wish child was,” said

junior Katie Buskirk, 17, the club’s president. “I was really

excited. I always feel comfortable sleeping in my own bed, and it was

very touching that he could find some place safe to be.”

Buskirk and her fellow club members -- one boy and about 25 girls

-- have not met their recipient, just as they didn’t the previous two

years. From September through May, the Make-A-Wish Club works hard to

raise money for an anonymous child in the community who is suffering

from a life-threatening condition. Group members know just two things

about their future honorees -- each has a special wish and, likely,

not much time to have it granted.

“It’s sort of a relief that I don’t have to know a person just to

do something good for them,” Buskirk said.

On March 19, the Make-A-Wish Foundation delivered the bed,

complete with reinforced side rails, to Andrew’s family. As a bonus,

it remodeled his room in a Spider-Man theme, installing new paint,

carpet, blinds and even a television with a DVD player.

At lunchtime on Friday, Make-A-Wish Foundation official Penelope

Collura presented Andrew’s plaque to the students. The school,

Collura said, was one of 11 in Orange County and the Inland Empire

this year to raise enough money to sponsor a wish.

Each of the last three years, Corona del Mar High’s Make-A-Wish

Club has raised $4,000 to fund a gift for the foundation -- providing

a child with a trip to Disneyland in 2003 and another with a pet dog

in 2004. This year, the Corona del Mar club raised money for Andrew

through candy sales, car washes and book-wrapping at Barnes & Noble.

“That’s what amazes me about these girls,” club advisor Denise

Weiland said. “They work all year to fund this wish.”

The Make-A-Wish Foundation, formed in 1980, grants wishes to

children between the ages of 2 1/2 and 18. To be eligible for a wish,

a child must be referred to the foundation by a parent, social worker

or physician and also have his or her gift approved by medical

authorities. The wishes, which the foundation provides at no cost to

families, may include vacations, gifts, meeting celebrities or

shadowing professionals for one day.

There are 25 Make-A-Wish clubs on high school campuses in Orange

County. More than 25,000 volunteers work nationwide for the

organization, which funds requests through grants, corporate

donations and charity events. Collura said individual donors and high

school clubs are the organization’s greatest fundraisers.

On June 25, the Orange County and Inland Empire chapter of

Make-A-Wish will hold a party at Wild Rivers to honor children who

received wishes this year, as well as ones who are still on the

waiting list.

Although Andrew did not attend the ceremony on Friday at Corona

del Mar High, Collura said the club members may meet him at the party

next month.

“Andrew is way too shy,” she explained. “If the child is shy, it’s

very hard to bring them into this situation.”