Wish Granting for Children with Severe Disabilities

As most of you know raising a child with severe disabilities is costly and some times it's the simple joys, like a family vacation, the get put on the back burner because other expenses are more important. I have recently found out that there are TWO organizations that grant wishes to our special children, after all they have been through, all the hardships they face, this could be the door to that one special place that they have dreamed about since they were little.


The first one is The Sunshine Foundation, not only do they do individual wishes but they also do "DreamLifts" every year. DreamList are day trips to places like Disney World or West Edmonton Mall, they travel with about 80 kids and medically trained staff, these are independent trips -no mom or dad constantly over them- and are for the older kids (7-18yrs).

The criteria for individual wishes and DreamLifts are as follows

To receive an Individual Dream, a child must:

1. Have a severe physical disability or a life-threatening illness
2. Be between the age of three to 18th birthday and have at least the cognitive ability of a three-year-old
3. Live in Canada
4. Be able to formulate his or her Dream (this must be the Dream of the child) and communicate the Dream with or without technical assistance
5. Have not already received a Dream or wish from a similar organization (however, the child may have participated on a Sunshine DreamLift)

In addition, the Dream and its cost and safety are considered. For those reasons, Dreams we are unable to grant include trips to dangerous places, motor vehicles, boats, all terrain vehicles, shopping sprees, medical equipment and trips to seek medical aid or to attend medical conferences.
To qualify for a DreamLift, a child must:

1. Be between the age of seven and 18th birthday
2. Have a severe physical disability or a life-threatening illness
3. Be able to endure a very long day
4. Have the ability to communicate with or without technical assistance.




The second wish granting organization is Starligh Children's Foundation Canada, Starlight's Criteria is below.

Eligibility
In order to receive a wish from the Starlight Children’s Foundation a child must:
-Be referred between the ages of 4-18 (up to the child’s 19th birthday)

-Have a chronic, serious or high-risk life threatening medical condition

-Not have received a wish from any other wish granting organization in the past

Illness Guidelines
-If a child is an organ transplant recipient, the transplant must have occurred within the last year (exception: child is experiencing rejection or has other complications)

-Any Leukemia, Hodgkin’s and cancer patients who have been off treatment for two or more years are not eligible. (Time begins when the maintenance phase ends)

-If the child has cerebral palsy or Spina Bifida they must be dependant on a walker or a wheelchair.

-Trauma/sever injury cases are looked at on a case by case basis.

These are some of the illness guidelines, and do not represent our list in its’ entirety. For more information, or if you have a question on an illness please do not hesitate to contact us.



***The Starlight Foundation also has a program called Great Escapes, this program offers various activities for your family to do together outside of your home with other families in situations just like yours! These include outings to the movies, sporting events, cruises, and they have even went to the Great Wolf Lodge, ALL of the events are all inclusive! The tab is picked up by generous donors so families can spend time together, regroup, and go home feeling revitalized and hopefully with a little stress lifted off their shoulders.


I hope you find this information as useful as I did, I just happened to stumble across the wish granting parts and a speaker at my son's school pointed me in the direction of Starlights' Great Escapes program.