One Simple Wish

Sometimes I will come across an article that makes me want to jump up and down shouting YES! I read one such article last week on CNN: Website Shows Foster Kids Their Wishes Are Worthwhile. The article is about an organization that grants wishes to foster children.

We’re all familiar with wonderful organizations such as Make-A-Wish that grants wishes to children with life-threatening medical conditions or the Jack & Jill Late Stage Cancer Foundation which grants wishes to families when one of the parents has terminal cancer. Now, One Simple Wish strives to grant wishes to foster children. And I gotta tell ya . . . I LOVE this idea.

As a little personal background, my two beautiful stepdaughters are both adopted. The oldest was separated from her brothers and sisters and bounced around to a couple of foster homes before coming to live with my husband and his ex-wife where she would eventually be adopted. The conditions in some of the foster homes were less than ideal, to say the least. The youngest was adopted at birth, but had that option not been available, she might have found her way to the foster care system, too.

Sadly, it is that way for many foster children in “the system” today. They wind up in bad homes or float from place to place without ever getting to put down roots anywhere. But, I also believe there are many foster parents who try to give the children the most loving home possible, while struggling to financially provide for his or her needs.

Imagine yourself as a foster child. You’ve lost what was familiar to you and are placed into a strange environment. Maybe you are moved from foster home to foster home for years. Your heart yearns for a permanent family of your own, one that will embrace you and care for you. But maybe that family never comes and you remain in foster care well into your teen years. Do you think you would feel unwanted? Would you be sad, depressed, and lonely?

This is why I think One Simple Wish is such a great organization! They step in and say to these children: “we care, YOU ARE SPECIAL, and your wish is important to us.” What could be better than making a child feel valued?

Are you curious about the types of wishes these foster children are making? You might be shocked at the simplicity and earnest desire behind many of them.

• One young boy wanted a suit to wear to a relative’s funeral.
• Another girl requested a gift card to Barnes & Noble so she could buy books to read.

Others were as simple as:

• Gymnastics lessons
• Clothes
• Ticket to Disneyland
• Laptop to take to college
• Tricycle

Clothes, books, lessons, tricycle, a computer for learning. Basic, everyday things that no child in 2013 should have to do without. And that’s where One Simple Wish steps in.

The best part of this program is that you can grant an entire wish for a child or contribute toward a wish – it all depends on how much you can contribute. There are, also, a variety of other ways you can participate: How You Can Help. Hop on over to their site and check out some of the wishes for yourself.

Blessings,
♥Rachel