The Children’s Wish Foundation has been dramatically changing lives in Canada for more than 25 years and they will continue to do so, said Gay Oldhaver, provincial director for the foundation.
But first, they needed to make a few subtle adjustments to one of their major fundraising events, the Wish Lottery.
“Last year’s campaign was down a bit. The campaign itself was shortened and we tried to sandwich it between other lottery campaigns,” said Oldhaver, who was in Estevan for an annual visit to local media outlets and supporting agencies. As a result, the Children’s Wish Foundation’s annual lottery did suffer a minor financial setback.
But that situation has not put any of this year’s programs or wish requests in jeopardy since the foundation was careful to plan ahead.
Oldhaver, who has been at the helm in Saskatchewan for the past four years, said there are over 200 wishes being granted this year alone.
The Canada-wide program sees youngsters who are afflicted with life-changing disabilities or health-related issues, try to have their biggest wish come true.
Last winter, a good number of Canadians who watch NHL hockey on Saturday nights, saw one Saskatchewan youngster living out his dream in front of thousands of fans and viewers. Garrett, an 11-year-old from Duck Lake, Sask., had a wish to hang out with NHL players, especially the Toronto Maple Leafs, so the Leafs in co-operation with the foundation, signed the young wheelchair user to a one-day contract. Garrett spent the day with the Leafs, escorted by Maple Leaf legend Wendel Clark who also took a tour of the ice with Garrett during the opening ceremonies before a Leaf home game in the Air Canada Centre.
“Garrett became an overnight celebratory and continues to be one around Duck Lake. In fact, he cashed in on that status, set up an autograph day at his school and sold his autograph for a toonie and sent the cash to the foundation,” said Oldhaver with a laugh.
“He’s quite the kid.”
This year, to spark some additional interest in the lottery, Oldhaver said they have taken a big leap by making the grand prize one million dollars, plus four new vehicle give-aways, an annual vacation island get-away for life, valued at more than $75,000, as a booster prize or a $200 weekly allowance for a year, as another incentive to purchase a lottery ticket. Some prizes contain a cash-equivalent option.
“We started out on last year’s campaign a bit slow, but eventually unscathed, but we knew we had to make changes,” said Oldhaver.
To that end, this year’s campaign began earlier, in August with an early bird deadline date of Oct. 1 and final deadline of Oct. 16. There are additional cash draws, bonus packages of trips to Banff, Niagara Falls and California and various purchasing options to maximize odds. There is an additional 50/50 draw starting with a single ticket purchases on up to 15 ticket packages.
“We’ve added a lot more, including the boost to $1 million,” said the director.
By having a few youngsters lend their stories, helps the foundation make their sales, said Oldhaver who added one such child was nine-year-old Summer from Saskatoon who lived her wish of visiting with dolphins, turtles and lizards. She did that on a Barbie Cruise with her parents following several painful operations on her leg to relieve vascular malformations.
“They help us round out the full picture of what we’re all about,” said Oldhaver.
The provincial executive director is fully aware of other lottery campaigns such as the Regina and Saskatoon Hospital lotteries and other provincially driven fundraisers including the newest item on the block the STARS air ambulatory service, all vying for those same charitable donation dollars.
“And all our causes are great and we are all striving to serve our communities, so it’s a numbers game, we totally understand that and so far, with this year’s effort, we’re tracking a normal path, which means it’s better than last year. Also, last year we took to social media in a more concentrated fashion and we discovered that while we got a lot of hits, they didn’t translate into sales, so we’ve come back to the more traditional methods of selling those lottery tickets.”
By extending the purchase period to beyond Thanksgiving, Oldhaver figures this year’s campaign will mark a good bounce-back for the campaign, even with the additional expenses loaded at the front end in the form of prizes.
“The Children’s Wish Foundation has been at this for 31 years and granted over 22,000 wishes across Canada, about 1,000 in Saskatchewan. We have 120 wishes in the pipeline right now, because we know the community in Saskatchewan always lends support.”
Once an application is made to the foundation, the family and the foundation give themselves up to five years to “get it done,” she said. Some can be carried out quickly, others require additional time, depending on the complexities. The wishes always include family members, up to age 25, when possible so that may mean a trip for as few as two, or as many as eight to 11 people.
“Those 120 we have on the go, are already funded, so nobody is in danger of losing their wish. But we are constantly fielding new wishes, referrals arrive steadily and there are lots of choices. Most are travel-based requests. We just completed one wish for a trip to Europe, but it was for just two people, so you can see, it’s a cash flow-based process,” said Oldhaver.
“This was also a great year for golf tournament support. For some reason we benefited a lot from some of them. I know the Getzlaf family in Regina are huge supporters and Chris and his friends, including more than 30 Saskatchewan Roughriders showed up for their family tourney this year. Ryan was still playing hockey, which was a good thing for him,” she said with a chuckle. “We had seven recipient families there to help out and talk to participants as they were wishing it forward, you might say. It was a great event, as were all of those tournaments, I’m sure.”
Oldhaver said there is at least one wish from southeast Saskatchewan in the pipeline right now, and they have granted more than 35 from this corner of the province in the past few years. “I just can’t share the name at this point, we do work quietly on these files, if that’s the wish of the families.”
The goal this year is to have 70 wishes granted in Saskatchewan and “we hope the lottery will bring in enough to support 40 of them. I know Estevan is noted as an extremely generous community, so I have no doubt we’ll find a good core support effort from here,” saitd Oldhaver, who hails from Swift Current, but works generally from the foundation’s Regina office.
