Wishes come true: Mill Creek staff brighten students’ holiday

Published 1:00 pm Thursday, December 24, 2015

Mill Creek Middle School seventh-grader Stacie Van was surprised and overjoyed to receive a large, stuffed teddy bear during her first-period physical education class last Friday.

Van was one of about 400 Mill Creek students whose “winter wishes” were granted thanks to generous staff and community members.

In November, students were asked to submit a wish request along with the reason for making the wish.

Van was overcome with emotion when a fellow Mill Creek student delivered the big, brown bear to her.

“I wanted it since I was really little and finally got one,” Van said. “A lot my relatives had them.”

Van wasn’t alone in requesting a teddy bear. Nearly 30 students wished for a cuddly companion.

“Most of them said ‘because I remember when I was little and it made me feel safe and happy,’ ” Mill Creek assistant principal Judy Beliveau said of the wish for the bears.

Liban Mohamed wasn’t sure he would get the basketball he asked for.

“It was 50-50,” Mohamed said upon receiving his gift. “I prayed (for a basketball) this morning.”

Leadership students helped organize the winter wish project, under direction of their Associated Student Body adviser Kacie Solar, and delivered the gifts.

Haven Phommanvongxay, an eighth-grade leadership student, enjoyed handing out the gifts to his classmates.

“It felt really good,” he said. “Now I know the feeling of giving instead of taking.”

Phommanvongxay didn’t leave school empty handed. He received his wish of Skittles candy.

Three big-ticket items were presented at the school’s winter music assembly.

Melissa Cervantes got a Steven Hauschka jersey and Rya Aluvale Aretone unwrapped a large package to unveil her new electric guitar.

“I’m shocked,” Aluvale Aretone told the school after opening her gift. “I always wanted an electric guitar.”

She comes from a musical family and her relatives play a variety of instruments.

About 60 students who requested video gaming systems or video games were entered into a drawing for a $100 Game Stop gift card. Jahmere Rowe was the lucky winner.

Gifts with special meaning

Beliveau said many of the wishes were touching.

She recalled one student who said she is the only member of her family who is Jewish and wanted something to celebrate Hanukkah, so a teacher bought her a mix to make a special Hanukkah dessert.

Another student said his dogs have never had a checkup at the veterinarian, so Beliveau contacted McMonigle Veterinary Hospital to arrange checkups for the boy’s pets.

“It is always a little more meaningful and a little more fulfilling to grant those who are wishing for books in this digital age and wishing for things that would truly make their year better,” Solar said.

Of the 400 wishes, about 250 were able to be fulfilled as requested with gifts ranging from a favorite snack food to sporting equipment to an encyclopedia to a skateboard.

But even if their wish couldn’t be fulfilled, every student who made a wish received a gift.

“Even though we couldn’t given them a million dollars, they still got something to acknowledge that they took the time to make a wish,” Solar said.

Solar said she tried to get creative with some larger wishes that couldn’t be fulfilled. The student who requested a trip around the world got postcards from various locales from across the globe, and a girl who requested a trip to Hawaii with her grandparents can play Hawaii Monopoly with them.

Solar started making wishes come true last year with help from her mother and students in her leadership class.

The idea originated from a leadership conference where students from another school talked about a similar project they did.

“We decided that it needed to be tradition and we were going to what we needed to do to make it happen,” Solar said.

This year, additional school staff helped buy and wrap gifts. Mill Creek deemed November and December the months of caring and taught lessons about caring to students.

Beliveau said faculty put the lessons into practice with the winter wishes project.

“The staff feels very strongly about actions speaking louder than words,” Beliveau said.

Solar, who has taught at Mill Creek for 10 years, appreciated the staff’s involvement.

“It was really cool to see the spirit of giving flourish among the staff,” she said. “We give our all … for our kids during the day. This was just another way to make them feel special and important in a time they don’t always get to feel necessary or important.”

Solar hopes to see the project grow.

“I would love more kids to make wishes then, of course, to have more staff and community and just be able to do something for all of them,” she said. “I would love to raise more money and make it more of a community event rather than just the school.”

PHOTO BELOW:

Rya Aluvale Aretone receives her wish of an electric guitar following a winter music assembly at Mill Creek Middle School last Friday. HEIDI SANDERS, Kent Reporter