St. Paul, Minn. – When 16-year-old Mishawn Woodcock was fighting cancer, she struggled to keep death out of her mind.
She didn’t want to see funeral flowers, priests offering last rites – or registration forms from the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
“I said: ‘I am OK, right? I am not dying, right?”‘ said Woodcock, recalling her panic when a nurse showed up with the Make-A- Wish paperwork. “I looked at the nurse. I looked at my dad. I said, ‘Don’t you tell me I am doing OK and then get Make-A-Wish in here.”‘
Woodcock, now a healthy 18-year-old from Ham Lake, thought the group granted wishes only to dying children.
Like most others, she didn’t realize that the sprawling wish-granting industry has been a victim of its own success, collecting hundreds of millions of dollars for a shrinking number of dying children.
The groups have been forced to broaden their missions to grant wishes to car-accident victims, senior citizens or those long past their illness. Some groups give money for scholarships or funerals.
The more than 150 chapters of various wish-granting groups in the United States still help dying youngsters, but kids like Woodcock are more common.
She recovered from her cancer a year ago and is a vision of good health who is looking forward to college in the fall. She feels guilty about accepting a present from the Make-A-Wish Foundation – a three-week reunion with a friend from Nicaragua.
“By taking this, am I taking a wish away from some little kid who is dying?” she asked.
The policy change raises questions. How sick does a kid have to be to get a free trip to Disney World? Does pneumonia qualify? How about a broken leg? Generally, local officials review applications. The national Association of Wish-Granting Organizations estimates that about two-thirds of children helped by the groups survive their ailment.
To get a wish from Make-A-Wish, a child must have an ailment that is “progressive, malignant or degenerative” as verified by a doctor, said Brent Goodrich, spokesman for the national Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Missing are the words “terminally ill.” In 2000, Make-A-Wish stopped saying it helped only dying children, Goodrich said.
