This year, there are many new student-run clubs on campus, one of which is the Make-A-Wish Club. This club was started by senior Abby Doll, and sophomore Alex McCusker is helping to run it. With the help of an employee at the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the club hopes to put on several fundraisers throughout the year, in order to get enough money to grant a child a wish.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation is a non-profit organization that helps fund wishes for children with critical illnesses. Through fundraisers and events, the foundation helps grant wishes that will change a child’s life and help them make childhood memories that are separate from his/her illness.

The club also has a partner club at St. Ignatius High School in San Francisco, started by Doll’s childhood friend and middle school classmate Topher Bligh. Doll and Bligh plan to compile their money at the end of the year to grant the wish. “Topher and I came up with the idea together because we had been been involved with Make-A-Wish in the past and we thought starting clubs would be a good idea at our schools,” Doll said. “We also reached out to our middle school classmates to see if they could start clubs at their schools.”

Doll was inspired to start this club after working over this past summer with an organization called Give Kids the World in central Fla. This organization helps provide housing and transportation for the thousands of children and their families who use their wish to travel to Florida to visit Disney World and other theme parks in the area. Give Kids the World is connected to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and while working there Doll thought of the idea for the club.

“I hope that we can do as much as we can to help because after working with the kids over the summer and getting to interact with them I have a whole new perspective [that] I never had before,” Doll said. “ [I never realized] what these kids have to go through and I want to do whatever I can to make their one wish come true. The one wish they get can sometimes be the only time they ever get to go out and stop thinking about the hospital and being sick.”

Make-A-Wish club meets every other Tuesday to discuss and plan fundraisers. Doll hopes that many people in the Menlo community will want to help and get involved.