For a young child and their parents, nothing is scarier and more isolating than a child contracting a severe illness. Fortunately, there are some organizations seeking to bring smiles to these children in the form of granting them a wish, including one at the University of Saskatchewan.

One such organization is the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Canada, which seeks to enhance the lives of children under the age of 18 who are suffering from severe medical illnesses by granting them a wish. According to the national branch’s website, the most popular wishes include travelling and meeting celebrities. Past wishes have ranged from trips to Disneyland to meeting Justin Bieber.

The financial situation of the family does not matter, as the organization covers costs for the children and their immediate family. The Canadian branch has several chapters across the country but only an outreach office in Saskatoon. One student new to the U of S is seeking to change that.

Brittany Fisher is a first year transfer student at the U of S and a former student from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. Inspired by the Students for Wishes chapter based at Queen’s, Fisher has set in motion a similar initiative at the U of S.

Although Fisher was never involved in the Kingston chapter, she believes the organization’s actions of fundraising to grant children’s wishes is worth striving for in Saskatoon.

“I noticed they didn’t have anything like it out here, so I contacted Make-A-Wish and they were definitely willing to start something up,” Fisher said, adding that the Queen’s organization has granted 17 wishes to children in the Kingston area via their fundraising efforts.

Fisher’s goal is to make a student chapter at the U of S as prominent as the one at Queen’s.

“That’s definitely something we’re looking to do. Make-A-Wish in Saskatchewan is actually pretty new. Children’s Wish Foundation is more prominent here because it’s Canadian, but Make-A-Wish is a lot bigger on an international scale, so they can offer more to the wish,” Fisher said. “So, if Children’s Wish Foundation is unable to grant a wish, their wishes will be handed over to Make-A-Wish where they can grant it to them.”

Fisher notes that Make-A-Wish has just started out in Saskatchewan and a university chapter will help to get the word out and spread awareness of its goals.

Although Fisher is enthusiastic about the cause, it has not been easy getting started. As a new student to the U of S, she has been trying both to get to know new people and recruit them into the Students for Wishes chapter. However, more people are joining the cause every day and Fisher notes that they have been a big help to her efforts. She hopes the organization will get off the ground in the near future.

“The seven people we do have are really great. We have a couple third and fourth year students getting involved and they know the campus fairly well, so they’ll definitely help get the word out … We’re getting the word out through word of mouth and hopefully we’ll be able to get things going within the next two weeks at the school,” Fisher said.

Although optimistic, Fisher acknowledges that there remains a lot of trial and error ahead.

“I think it’s going to be a lot of teamwork; we’ll be working to figure out what works best and hopefully over the next year, we can get this group bigger across campus.”

Despite the challenges that lie ahead, Fisher is positive that Students for Wishes will become more prominent in Saskatchewan and Western Canada overall. 

“Especially in Saskatchewan, with the [children’s] hospital starting up here, I think people will definitely want to get involved because the hospital will be here and there will be more children it will be relative to.”

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Liam Fitz-Gerald

Graphic: Jeremy Britz/Graphics Editor