State grants Make-A-Wish’s wish
$500K helps repair flood damage, adds features to Trumbull facility
TRUMBULL — Murals, arts and craft stations, arcade machines and even a giant a vault are just some of the features that greet children about to set on their journey through Make-A-Wish Connecticut.
The idea behind the tour at the headquarters in Trumbull is to spark children’s creativity and focus their wish in a soothing, playful way that subtly reassures them that they are part of a community. Big-screen TVs and displays illustrating imaginative wishes that the organization has granted line the tour, all done up like a playground-esque combination of living room and funhouse.
But due to flood damage caused by about 200 gallons of sewage almost a year ago, that tour has been altered or stalled.
A recent $500,000 grant from the state aims to help fix the damage though and add some more features to the wish tour.
“Research shows that if they have a wish, it can give them the strength to overcome a really critical illness,” Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz said during a news conference Monday that followed the tour at 56 Commerce Drive.
She called the elaborate layout of rooms “an incredibly creative and kid-friendly” space that provides “fun activities spaces and places for kids and families to come.”
Like the money, the tour in the center’s newly renovated areas emphasized how the $6 million facility built in 2021 helps children ailing from cancer have their wishes come true.
The Connecticut organization grants about 250 wishes annually and has a waitlist of about 350 children, all of whom are in need of help from the organization, said Bysiewicz, who encouraged people to donate.
Two overflowing toilets discovered last February shut down the building for several months. About two inches of sewage water spread across roughly 5,000 square feet of floor space, then seeped into another play area on the floor below where it damaged couches and other furniture in the building, a former Pilot Pen manufacturing site.
Shortly thereafter, Make-AWish leaders discovered that the insurance they got through their national office had a water-damage cap of $300,000, not nearly enough to cover all the damage.
The $500,000 covers the rest of the damage repair insurance didn't cover plus some additions to the wish tour, including a small fishing pier and a healing garden that will feature a pollinator garden, said Pam Keough, the corporation's president and CEO.
Repairs or additional construction will resume in the spring with everything finished by mid-2025, Keough said.
The revitalization plans have a special resonance with Jillian Duffy, a wish journey coordinator at Make-A-Wish.
Duffy, now 26, was 13 and living in Burlington when doctors discovered that she had acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a common form of childhood cancer that usually plagues children about half that age.
Duffy decided that she wanted to work for Make-A-Wish after taking a wish journey herself. At first, she wanted to meet Justin Bieber. Then she wanted dance lessons from someone on the TV show “Dancing with the Stars.” Muscular damage limited her ability to dance, so when she was convinced that she would survive, she sought, and received, a trip to Hawaii with her family.
It was a chance, she said, to thank them for their support and for her to understand what they endured with her during her illness, especially her younger sister.
“It was never a feel-bad-forme kind of stance, but I did see that it interrupted their schedules, it interrupted their daily lives, and the constant worry of having a family member of that maybe isn't doing so well is a lot of stress,” Duffy said of her illness.
She said the trip was a chance to reconnect as a family outside of the hospital and without her IV cart trailing behind.
“My wish was really just an inspiration for me to get through my entire journey and my doctors and nurses were all aware of what my wish was,” Duffy said. “They would tease me and motivate me.”
Those kinds of connections are what Make-A-Wish is all about, Duffy said.