Toni Lobdell, Wish-Granting Volunteer
April is National Volunteer Month, and at the Make-A-Wish Foundation® we are truly grateful for the enormous amount of energy and creativity all our volunteers pour into every wish. To help celebrate all that our volunteers do for our wish kids, we want to tell you a little more about one person who makes wishes come true.
Toni Lobdell has been granting wishes in Eastern Washington since 2005. Since she started volunteering with Make-A-Wish, she has helped grant seven wishes. "I think my favorite wish so far was probably the little family in Potlatch, WA," Toni said. "And I shouldn't say little, because there was a total of 10 children! They live on a hill in a 'Little House on the Prairie' setting, and the little wish kiddo wanted to go to Alaska. The family was just the funnest group of people, and I loved working with them."
Toni leads a very full life with two young children and two other volunteer positions. Somehow, she always seems to find time to help grant a wish. "Sometimes I say that I'm not going to volunteer on any more wishes, because I'm just so busy," Toni said. "But then I see the request come through and I know I need to work on that wish. I get addicted to granting wishes, because I love meeting the kids. Many of them are funny and resilient, and they have such a great attitude that you don't think about their illness. They really make you refocus. The paperwork is not as fun, but I love meeting the kids."
While volunteers don't expect anything in return for their service, The Walt Disney Company decided to do something special to recognize all their hard, selfless work. They created a program called "Give A Day. Get A Disney Day." With this program, volunteers received free admission to either Walt Disney World® or Disneyland® when they signed up and completed a day of volunteer service with a participating organization, like the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The goal of the program was to inspire one million people to volunteer a day of service. That goal has been reached!
Toni was one of the million people who traded in a day of volunteering for a day at Disneyland. She thought she was just going to receive a ticket, and go to the parks like every other guest. She was surprised to discover that the folks at Disneyland treated her and her daughter to a very special day.
We were treated like royalty," Toni said. When they picked up their tickets, they received volunteer buttons to wear in the park, as well as a handful of passes to help them get through the lines a little more quickly. Throughout the day, various Disney Cast Members asked them who they volunteered for and thanked them for volunteering. At one point, one Cast Member asked them if they would like to be in a parade. "It was the full-on parade riding in the Grand Marshall Car," Toni said. "It was just incredible!"
At the end of the parade route, they had special VIP seating for volunteers. The cast of the parade came and did the whole parade show all over again, just for the volunteers. "My daughter did the Conga with Goofy, and they took pictures of us," Toni said. "It was just so neat. They treated us like we were really important."
Volunteers are very important to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Without them, we could not have granted 307 wishes last year and over 4,000 wishes since the inception of our chapter.
Thank you to all our volunteers for their tireless commitment to our mission of bringing hope, strength, and joy to children battling life-threatening illnesses.
If you would like to learn why granting wishes can be so addictive, please visit our volunteer web site: http://www.northwestwishes.org/volunteer/overview.asp
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