Miami ‘Wish House’ wows both children and adults

While the most obvious impact of Make-A-Wish Southern Florida’s Finker-Frenkel Wish House is on the Miami landscape, the most important is what has taken place inside the facility’s walls.

The 25,000-square-foot, five story building, which overlooks I-95 from the historic Overtown neighborhood, houses “WishWorks,” an interactive, multi-media experience created by a former Disney imagineer. Featuring leading-edge technology and effects, it has taken hundreds of critically ill children and families on a journey of discovery to determine a life-changing wish especially for them.

Wish kids most often “wish to be” (something), “wish to meet” (someone), “wish to go” (somewhere), “wish to have” (something), or “wish to give” (to a cause) and Make-A-Wish fulfills the request for the child and their entire family at no cost or obligation.

“The Finker-Frenkel Wish House is an opportunity for us to help children impacted by serious medical issues expand their imaginations and dream bigger than the reality they currently know, which is all too often dominated by doctors, treatments, and hospitals,” said Norman Wedderburn, president and CEO of Make-A-Wish Southern Florida. “WishWorks takes their minds to other places and transforms the wish discovery process as they navigate their way through what we’ve created.”

Prior to the opening of the “wish house” last year, volunteers would meet eligible kids and families in their homes to help determine the child’s wish. While Make-A-Wish always has encouraged recipients to ask for anything – which often includes traveling to an exotic place, meeting a celebrity, or having a once-in-a lifetime experience – what they were finding was that some requests, like receiving a gift card, were reflective of those trapped by their circumstances and current environment. WishWorks, with its whimsical trip through a child’s imagination, opens eyes and hearts to a world of possibilities.

A privately funded capital campaign enabled Make-A-Wish Southern Florida to raise the dollars required to purchase land and build the facility without using funds generated to grant wishes. Being part of the revitalization of Overtown and Downtown in the largest city in its territory also were motivators to put down roots in the Magic City.

While the glass facility is eye-catching and its impact significant, Wedderburn credits the nonprofit’s donors and event attendees with generously funding its mission even while a capital campaign for the wish house was ongoing. It has enabled the chapter to directly or indirectly grant more than 900 wishes in its most recent fiscal year.

The lion’s share of those wishes are for medically eligible children in Southern Florida, but some are those whose wish experiences bring them into the chapter’s territory (swimming with dolphins in the Florida Keys, for example), and others for chapters that may have more requests than the funding required to fulfill them. It all adds up to the local chapter having impact emanating from, but going far beyond, its base in Miami-Dade County.

Beyond hosting wish families, the building also provides event and office space for the chapter, and hosted other area nonprofits and groups focused on serving children.

“We want to be a connector and do our part to make this a better community. If a meeting with others at our facility can spark ideas and form partnerships that can help us all maximize the impact that can be had, that’s what we want to do,” Wedderburn said.

Make-A-Wish Southern Florida has granted more than 15,000 life-changing wishes since 1983 for children who have critical illnesses. It aims to grant a wish for every medically eligible child and understands wishes aren’t just nice, they’re necessary for kids and families during some of their most difficult times.

To learn more about donating, referring a child, becoming a volunteer, or attending an event, visit www.wish.org/sfla.

 

 

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