Being a Part of Making a Child’s Wish Come True
By: MacKenna Angert
Jay Dawson receives his superhero cape from SAAC member Photo credit Nollaig Noll
After almost seven weeks of planning, Shippensburg University’s Student-Athletic Advisory Committee (SAAC) finally revealed the wish of a 5-year-old boy to him in front of a stadium full of students.
February 24, 2016 at the Shippensburg women’s basketball game, Jason “Jay” Dawson was invited to attend a superhero themed game. Dawson has been fighting a brain tumor for more than half of his life.
Throughout the game Jay won little raffles where he won nerf guns and his own SU basketball jersey. His biggest surprise came at halftime when he was brought to the center of the court and told he would be going to Disney World next month.
His response was amazing and heart warming. Jay flexed his muscles to the crowd and the students gave him a standing ovation and chanted his name. The night was more than what SAAC and Make-A-Wish could have hoped for.
According to Make-A-Wish, the foundation has granted 14,800 wishes in just the year of 2015 and on average one wish every 35 minutes. In the United States more than 270,000 children have had their wish granted.
Samantha Sabol, secretary of SAAC, worked hard with her fellow students to make this night perfect. The committee started working towards this night as soon as the 2016 spring semester began.
“The goal of the night was to make it the most memorable night for Jay and his family,” Sabol said.
In order to prepare for the event, SAAC met with Make-A-Wish multiple times beforehand to discuss all of the technical details. Monday nights SAAC held their meetings to go over more details. The key was preparation.
According to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), Division II schools through SAAC have raised more than $605,000 for Make-A-Wish during 2015. This is the first time the division has passed $600,000.
One of the biggest ways that SAAC raised money for the wish reveal was to sell Make-A-Wish stars to students and faculty on campus and to community members. These stars were hung at the event along with balloons, streamers, a photo booth, an ice cream station and t-shirt tables.
“I think there is always a fear that during a big event like this that things may not always go as planned,” SAAC member, Nollaig Noll said.
Even with the fear of failure, the night turned out to be completely successful all thanks to Jay and his personality.
“Even though Jay has been through so much and still is battling, he still brought a lot of joy and happiness to this event. I think this aspect made it very rewarding because all of these negative things in his life seemed to be stripped away. Jay’s feedback made our event as memorable as possible,” Sabol said.
“I felt really honored to be a part of helping Jay’s wish come true,” Noll said.
At the end of the day Jay made more of an impact on SAAC, Shippensburg University and his community than he’ll ever know.