40 Of The Strangest Wishes That The Make-A-Wish Foundation Actually Granted, As Shared By People Online

I worked at a LEGO retail store in the 2000s and Make-A-Wish approached us for a child with terminal Osteosarcoma who wanted to be in the store for a day. LEGO unfortunately denied the request (which surprised myself and the rest of the staff because LEGO was a pretty great company). Staff decided to honor the request ourselves. We closed the store early on a Sunday, then invited the kid and family in. He had a full run of the store, we collectively paid for like $1000 worth of toys for him to take home, and just spent the entire evening building w/e he wanted. He died a few months later 😭

I don't have a story this is just a reminder that John Cena has fulfilled over 650 Make-A-Wishes and he is an absolute legend

A funeral. He knew his parents wouldn't be able to afford one, so he wished to have his funeral paid for. They were able to convince his to make another wish, and he wished for gold lockets for his mom and sister with his initials engraved on them.

Edit: His funeral was paid for as well. I believe another non profit helped with that. They just really wanted him to have a wish for himself, but all he cared about was his family.

My wife worked as a nurse at a children’s hospital and cared for a 17 year old cancer patient who’s wish was to meet wiz kalifa. He showed up and spent the day, my wife said they went on a walk and came back high as balls. She said it was a great day for the boy and his family. He passed away a few weeks later.

My friend's an aquarist and she told me about one 17-year-old cancer patient who had a wish to smell a sea lion's breath before he died.

He had read it was the worst thing ever and was just curious to experience it for some reason. Plus he liked sea lions, I guess.

She was of course pretty shocked by the request and said "are you sure? I promise you really, really don't want to smell it, I always make sure to hold my breath if I'm getting that close" but he insisted and it was arranged.

He puked, and didn't enjoy it very much.

I had a coworker at my student job in college who had leukemia as a child. He wished to be in the Iditarod so they flew his family to Alaska and he got to meet all the dogs and ride in a sled for a leg of the race. If I remember correctly he also got a husky puppy.

He was 20 when I met him. I was a couple of years older and graduated college and never saw him again. The leukemia came back and he died in 2016. I don’t think he was much older than 25. One of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. I hope heaven is real just for you, Ben.

In wizard 101 there’s a quest with an NPC named Brandon, named after a make a wish kid who played the game, and his request was to design a side quest for the game. You meet Brandon and go help him clear out this dungeon with 2 really f*****g hard bosses, was a lotta fun. At the end U get a gem you can socket that lets you summon Brandon into battle as a follower, pretty cool. Not sure what ended up happening to Brandon, but it’s really cool that thousands of ppl have gotten to enjoy being a part of his wish tbh

After I survived cancer at 17, I was offered a wish. I went to Christmas Island with my family to see the spawning of the red crabs - reckoned to be one of the seven natural wonders of the world.

Picture it, a million fist sized red land crabs making their way down to the sea edge to release their eggs into the ocean over a period of just three hours or so.

The make a wish volunteers looked horrified as I explained it.

And Im typing this now, so yes, I lived thanks.

Edit: Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure my wish caught my family a bit off guard too.

I was a make a wish kid back in 2017 and my wish was to go see a live brain surgery, in Seattle at University of Washington. I loved Grey's Anatomy, I loved Dr Shepherd, and I had brain cancer so I wanted to see what the my doctors kind of saw, what an experience and learned so much. I was a little neurosurgeon for a day, and the neurosurgeon was playing The Pixies while operating. What a great happy moment, I won't forget. They even sent my family from Arizona to Seattle with me, to have dinner with me in the space Needle.

OK this is.more wholesome than anything, but a girl who was a grade above me had cancer in high school. She graduated and I joined the band my senior year to see this plaque with her name and face on it from make a wish. She used her wish to donate new instruments to the school's band (as they were needing new ones). I still know her to this day and she makes a ton of jokes about cancer that it even freaked out her college roommates. She's one of the nicest people I've ever met

Friend’s son want a spider costume. Not a Spider-Man costume. Spider. It was the day before Halloween. A volunteer stayed up all night and made him the costume.

What about that article I saw a few weeks ago about a kid who wanted to use a taser on someone so they let her tase a police officer? That was gold!

I got a wish when I was 8. Was a massive wrestling fan at the time and used to watch it when I was in hospital as they had foxtel (Australian cable). Anyway so I wished for foxtel to watch wrestling.

It took a few months but eventually it got granted - free foxtel with all channels + ppvs until I turned 16 plus the biggest TV on the market back then.

They forgot to ever turn off the free foxtel - I'm now 30.

I was a Blackhawk pilot in the Army and we had a Make A Wish kid who wanted to fly in an Army helicopter. We had to remove all the seats so we could strap his wheelchair down in the middle of the helicopter and we flew him around at treetop level yanking and banking with the doors open for awhile.

I was approached by a similar organization who wanted to arrange a day for a kid to shadow a veterinarian. I’m just a small animal veterinarian with a small hospital so I found it odd that I’d be approached.

I said yes (who tf would say no?) and we picked a day and had our regular patients in the hospital and the kid got to watch us do our thing for a day. We gave him a lab coat and a stethoscope and let him tag along and see x rays and ultrasounds and watch surgeries. I brought my dog in so he could try the ultrasound on her.

He seemed to enjoy it. It wasn’t a terribly strange request really, it just seems like my day-to-day isn’t something anyone would consider their dream experience.

Former employee here.

Over half of the wishes are Disney related and beyond that they typically fall into a few categories:

“I wish to travel…”
“I wish to meet…”
“I wish to be…”
“I wish to have…”
“I wish to give…”

You get the idea. So, I always liked wishes that fell outside of the typical wish categories. One time, there was a boy that wished for… “the perfect baked potato.” I don’t know if the wish granters went through with that wish (they may have waited until he was a little older), but I still laugh when I think about it.

Volunteers are trained to ensure they are determining the child’s one true wish (not mom’s wish to go on a cruise, or dad’s wish for new tools, etc.)… a lot of work and thought goes into fulfilling a child’s wish.

Heard about one kid who, upon finding his cancer was terminal, requested to meet Voldemort so that he could join the Death Eaters

I am the kid in this case. I didn't have cancer, but at the time, my heart was just not doing so well. So, since I kind of qualified for Make a wish, I was considering 2 options at the time: A dog/pet friendly restaurant or a camper.

I decided to go with the camper (Since I can't control by body temperature and overheat very easily, so I couldn't do tent camping. Now, I am happily camping as I write this answer here

There was a Make-a-Wish kid in a class I taught once and their wish was to tour a pickle factory.

Pickles were their all time favorite food and they wanted to see how the sausage was made so to speak.

Apparently Vlasic rose to the occasion in a major way and she had the time of her life.

I have incurable cancer but I'm an adult... I've been put in touch with a chartity who helps out people in my position. Normally it's not a "Make a wish" type of thing, they just pay for a holiday or something. But I have told them that if I'm still here after covid and if Bill Burr does another world tour... I'd like to meet him... they responded pretty positively saying they'd "see what they could do" haha... I'm not holding my breath, but it would be pretty cool if it happened.

Edit:
1) Wow this took off, thanks so much for the upvotes, awards, comments, offers of help and offers to get me to an actual upcoming Bill Burr show. I couldn't believe it.

2) I am in Australia and currently can't just pop over to the USA because of COVID, cancer treatment and regular life stuff. This is why I said "if Bill Burr does another world tour". He's been here before, so post COVID there is a good chance he'll come again.

3) When I could no longer work as a Train Driver (they for some reason don't want people with brain tumours in charge of 1000 peoples lives) I had to semi retire. Instead I published my own [Children's Book](http://www.giraffeonyourhead.com) as a new career that I can pick up or put down easily depending on how I'm going with treatment. So feel free to check it out.