Volunteer Spotlight: Ian Williamson

A majority of our volunteers directly help us with wish granting, but “skills” volunteers like Ian Williamson support our mission in a different and equally vital way. For more than 10 years, Williamson has been donating his time and technological skills to bring wish stories to life through video production. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, his support as a volunteer was particularly important because it allowed us to continue to connect our Make-A-Wish community to our mission at a time when we couldn’t gather in person. Not only did he produce amazing videos sharing our wish kids’ journeys, he also helped with online and livestream event production. Williamson is currently producing another amazing wish video for our 2023 Evening of Wishes gala, taking place on March 9!

In 2010, I was watching the local morning news and saw a segment on a Make-A-Wish event taking place later that day in San Francisco. It was 7-year-old Kassaundra’s wish to be a famous singer. The news segment included a call for volunteers to be fans, part of her security, or members of the media. I happened to be free that day, so I decided to grab my camera and head out for a day of something different, without any expectation.

The day was fantastic, and I got a ton of good footage, but even more importantly, I left the event with a wonderful feeling of excitement. It really felt like I was part of something spontaneous and larger than myself. For everyone else, it was just a normal day, but for me and the hundreds that showed up, it was a day they’d never forget.

Still energized from the day, I stayed up that night editing a video together, if for no other reason than to work with my footage and tell a story of this amazing day. At that time, I had been working in film and television for over 10 years, but making this video felt like it belonged alongside a handful of projects that were very different and special to me.

I genuinely believe that we thrive through cooperation with others. It’s a pathway to happiness for all of us. Being a part of something larger than ourselves provides a sense of fulfillment that I don’t believe can be found on our own. I’ve found giving a part of myself to the service of others makes me feel whole.

One that occurs to me happened in 2020 during Valeria’s wish to sing on stage. It was early in the day when a dozen of us volunteers were setting up the stage at the Concord Pavilion to be ready for our star to arrive. We were the first people to do anything on this iconic stage in several months due to the pandemic. I was walking up the stairs of the many empty rows looking for angles to shoot from when the sound system played the music for Valeria’s performance for the first time. It was the loudest noise I had heard in seven months, and I felt the bass as it passed through me. And as foreign as the sound was as it echoed around this amphitheater, it hit me in my heart that there was something magical about to happen. Not just for Valeria, but for everyone involved to make her wish a reality.

Each video is as unique as the child and their wish. My goal is always to use a child’s wish as a vessel to explore our shared humanity making the wish come true. To me, Valeria’s wish involved a community of people, many of them strangers to each other, coming together by a shared passion for performance art for a child during a pandemic. For Sofia’s wish, that video was about a creative collaboration of professions to help her see her vision realized. For Shane’s wish to travel across the Unites States to meet the police department of the small farming town of Gonzales, Calif., it was an exploration about what made that town so incredible as to touch the heart of a child from so far away.

For the wishes that involve community, telling those stories provide a mirror for all of us to see a reflection of the best parts of our shared humanity. I want to believe when people see stories of everyday people going out of their way to do good, it opens a doorway for them to go through to do good themselves. Make-A-Wish represents and presents hope to all of us.

I feel very fortunate that I found something to do for a living that I love so much that I’d do it for free for a worthy cause. I’ve found extending my skills and expertise beyond providing for myself and family to be amazingly rewarding. The day in and day out of working for a living over time blurs into a singular event, but donating oneself and their talents to an organization like Make-A-Wish gives back a renewed sense of purpose that is very heartwarming and memorable.