You’ll Never Believe
How Make-A-Wish Turned
This Kid into a Dinosaur
Wishes don’t come true overnight. Granting a single wish takes a village and can take months of planning, logistics, and more. At Make-A-Wish, we do everything we can to ensure each child gains the maximum benefit of a wish experience. We believe a wish is limited only by the child’s imagination.
And five-year-old Hunter’s imagination was big.
Hunter was struggling with severe pain in his leg, and his parents just knew something wasn’t right. Several doctors’ visits later, Hunter was diagnosed with leukemia. His parents will tell you he didn’t seem sick — he was just a happy kid with a love of dinosaurs.
Hunter’s love of dinosaurs ran so deep that when he told us his wish was to be a dinosaur, we said “You got it!”
Hatching the Plan
We didn’t want to just give Hunter a cool dinosaur costume. We wanted to give him a full dinosaur experience that he’d never forget. Donning his cool dinosaur costume, Hunter hatched from an egg at John Ball Park Zoo. Suddenly, Hunter was a dinosaur on the loose, running around town, and living his dino dream as a Spinosaurus.
It Takes a Village
With the support and collaboration of friends, close supporters, board members, public safety officials, media, committee members, and strangers, the entire West Michigan community came together to make Hunter’s wish come true.
The Grand Rapids Police and Fire Departments tried catch the Spinosaurus to no avail. Local stations covered this breaking news, interviewing bystanders and witnesses in real-time.
A Roaring Good Time
Our Make-A-Wish Michigan chapter had an idea to make Hunter’s experience larger than life: celebrate his wish journey at our annual Wish Ball. Hunter’s path led him to the West Michigan Wish Ball, where he barreled into the DeVos Place Convention Center to fight a T-Rex. After winning the battle, Hunter showed off one more roar before going back into his dino egg.
Wishes Need You
When children like Hunter tell us their wishes, we do everything we can to give them life-changing experiences — no matter how wild the wishes. For Hunter’s wish, it took tons of volunteers, lots of planning, and help from people like you.
We can only grant one out of every two wishes. For every wish kid like Hunter, there’s another child with a critical illness that needs our help. You can help us make more wishes come true by donating today. You can also fundraise for Make-A-Wish or volunteer for your local chapter — maybe there’s a dinosaur in your community waiting to hatch!