There are kids across the South Plains waiting right now to meet their wish granters.
Briley Fleitman has been granting wishes for three years now.
“I have seven wish kids. It’s unbelievably rewarding and I just love everything about it,” said Fleitman.
Right now the Make-A-Wish Foundation is in need of wish granters, and it’s so easy to get involved.
“What you do is you would apply and do a volunteer application online, just check on there that you want to be a wish granter. And then we’ll do a background check on you, and you can do a two hour training for wish granting and a one hour training for volunteer. So it’s all online. It’s pretty simple and then you’re ready to go,” said Jordan Perry, Development Officer for the Make-A-Wish Foundation Lubbock Office.
For Fleitman her first wish kid was a little nerve wracking.
“My first wish kid going through the process with them made me a little nervous. Going through all the paper work or maybe I forgot something. Half way through it was super easy, just talk to the kids understand what they’re going through. Figuring out what they want their one wish to be and telling them we can try to make that happen and then staying in contact through the wish process,” said Fleitman.
It really only takes a few hours of your time.
“So you kind of lay out what Make-A-Wish can do for them. Have them brainstorm. Usually they brainstorm a little before we meet them too. That’s what we discover on our first meeting,” said Fleitman.
After all the paperwork is filled out, it’s the wish granters job to find out what the child wants to do.
“You want to get to know them, what their interests and likes are. If their favorite character is Spider-Man and that’s all they talk about. Then they want a puppy. But if they want a puppy then that’s what we want them to have. Whatever the kid is so passionate about we’ll ask them questions about that,” said Perry.
The goal is to find out their one true wish. “If they wanted all the flip flops at Walmart then that’s what we’re going to do,” said Perry.
After you find out what they want, you get to throw them a party.
“It’s the wish granter’s responsibility to form a wish reveal. That’s the big grand balloons, posters, community coming together to say ‘hey you’re going to Disney World’ or whatever,” said Fleitman.
If you would like to get involved with the Make-A-Wish Foundation give them a call at 806-785-9474.
