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Mission Statement

The mission of the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Greater Pennsylvania and Southern West Virginia is to grant the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength and joy.

Wishmaker Program-The Make-A-Wish Foundation of Greater Pennsylvania and Southern West Virginia has one program - we grant the wishes of children who have diagnosed life-threatening medical conditions.

We currently cover 23 counties in Southern WV that include Wirt, Calhoun, Clay, Roane, Jackson, Mason, Putnam, Cabell, Wayne, Lincoln, Mingo, Logan, Boone, Kanawha, Fayette, Nicholas, Greenbrier, Raleigh, Wyoming, McDowell, Mercer, Summers, and Monroe

A key category of funders is the group known as Wishmakers, those foundations, individuals, corporations or groups that underwrite the cost of one or more wishes -- $3,900. The Wishmaker amount is based on our most requested wish - a one-week long vacation for four to Disney World.

Children are energized by a wish. They can anticipate, describe, imagine, plan, and eventually rejoice in its fruition. In granting a child's wish, the Make-A-Wish Foundation provides children and their families with a chance to forget about the pain and fear caused by an illness, and to instead focus on the joy and hope of having a wish granted. Both parents and physicians confirm that wish experiences play a unique role in the healing process for children and their families. Wishes encourage children and their families to focus on the future and a fun experience, which improves everyone's mental and emotional health during an incredibly stressful period. In fact, many children and their families describe the wish experience as a turning point in their fight against a life-threatening medical condition.

Based on a recent Wish Impact Study sponsored by the Make-A-Wish Foundation of America and conducted by the TCC Group, an independent consulting firm, wish experiences benefit children's physical health and everyone's state of mind, and they positively impact the community. According to the study;

89% of parents observed an increase in their child's emotional strength

75% of parents observed that the wish experience increased their child's physical health and strength

84% of parents observed a decrease in their child's anxieties and fears

91 % of parents observed that the wish experience decreased their child's depression or sadness

88 % of parents reported that they felt their own decreased sense of isolation

98% of parents felt that the wish experience gave them the opportunity to be a "normal" family again

The benefits of wish fulfillment are many and varied. Though it is difficult to measure the progress a child might have made as a direct result of a granted wish, we have too many examples of children going into remission and remaining healthy to doubt that our program can make a difference. We are delighted and proud to state that 81% of our wish children are still alive.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation undergoes an annual audit by Grant Thornton in which the auditors carefully examine all income and expense figures. In addition, the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Greater Pennsylvania and Southern West Virginia is part of a national organization, Make-A-Wish Foundation of America, which demands quarterly account reports of income and expenses. The financial status of the Make-A-Wish Foundation is regular reviewed and reported in the bulletin of the National Charities Information Bureau, and consistently receives the highest ranking as a charity which expends more than 75 per cent of its funds on program services. However, our chapter exceeds even that amount, spending 85.8 percent of all income on program services.

Purpose Statement

The purpose of the Make-A-Wish Foundation® is to grant the wish of each child who has reached the age of 2½ and is under the age of 18 who has a life-threatening medical condition, i.e., a progressive, degenerate or malignant medical condition that has placed the child’s life in jeopardy.

Make-A-Wish began in 1980 with Chris, a seven-year-old Phoenix, Arizona, boy who dreamed of becoming a policeman. Unfortunately, because Chris was very ill with leukemia, it seemed unlikely that his dream would be fulfilled. A group of police officers from the Arizona Department of Public Safety got together to make the child an honorary state trooper for a day. They outfitted him with his own uniform, helmet and badge. The boy rode in a helicopter and patrol car and was even allowed to write citations for jaywalking pedestrians. That evening, Chris said, “This has been the best day of my life!”

Chris died five days after his wish was fulfilled, and he was buried in his police uniform. To assuage their grief, the friends who fulfilled Chris’s wish created an informal organization and began to replicate the process for other children with life-threatening illnesses. From that beginning, the Make-A-Wish Foundation of America was born. It has become the world’s largest wish-granting organization, having fulfilled the wishes of more than 200,000 children since 1980.

There are currently 62 chapters of the Make-A-Wish Foundation in 53 states and territories in the United States, including Guam and Puerto Rico. Additionally, there are territorial field offices within many of these chapters, which bring over 100 units of Make-A-Wish to children and their families. Make-A-Wish of America has also established an International Division with 14 affiliates, among them Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, Great Britain, Ireland, Canada, Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands and New Zealand.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation of Greater Pennsylvania and Southern West Virginia, founded in March 1983, has become a Pittsburgh institution. It is the eighth chapter to be chartered since Make-A-Wish was founded, and is currently the most active chapter of Make-A-Wish in the world. As of today, more than 13,000 children and their families have benefited from the magic that comes from having a wish fulfilled.

Our chapter has six field offices located in Erie, Punxsutawney, York, Pottsville and Scranton, PA and Charleston, WV. The Make-A-Wish Foundation of Greater Pennsylvania ad Southern West Virginia serves 57 counties in Pennsylvania and the 23 counties of Southern West Virginia. It is the only wish granting organization in western Pennsylvania. The population of this territory is close to eight million.