Once Upon a Wish by Rachelle Sparks Read Free Book Online Page B

with the foundation, and David started to see the impact that one spunky, curly-haired little girl can make.
    That year, during the North Texas chapter’s Wish Night, a signature event that raises close to $1 million a year for the foundation, Tatum and Hannah, in fancy little dresses, felt like princesses mingling with guests in gowns and black tuxedos. The room around them, filled with music and twinkling lights, became their castle as they floated through a sea of millionaires.
    As the chapter’s largest annual fundraiser, the most dedicated donors and the city’s biggest moneymakers flood the event to become inspired by the stories they hear and the children they meet.
    When a Dallas businessman and millionaire shook hands with Tatum that evening and listened to her story, he pulled out his checkbook and her eyes grew wide as she watched the motion of his hand complete circle after circle on the small piece of paper, giving a total of $60,000.
    She looked up at him in silence. No words were needed to accompany her big eyes and wide smile.
    She had just made a difference.
    I wish for all the other children’s wishes to come true,
she recalled whispering into that star seven years before, on the very first day of her Wish trip at Give Kids The World Village. The check in her hand was proof that she could make that wish come true on her own.
    She started attending local Wish parties, gathering with other Wish children to create mosaics, jewelry, pottery, and other art to donate for Wish Night. One painting that Tatum helped create was auctioned for $15,000.
    She started speaking at countless fundraising events and began selling Wish bears at Christmastime.
    “Talk to anybody you make eye contact with,” David told Tatum the very first time she volunteered to sell the bears.
    Tatum left with her arms full of bears and, chatting and laughing with every person she encountered, returned with fistfuls of money. She has helped every year since, raising thousands of dollars.
    Over the years, Tatum’s bubbly personality has had golfers laughing at tee time during fundraising golf tournaments. Her voice, promoting the foundation, has poured into home, car, and office radios throughout the Dallas area, and her ability to tell her Wish story has left audiences in tears.
    “My wish was like a true miracle to me. I felt like a princess,” the now 15-year-old said during a 2008 fundraising event. “After returning from my Wish trip, I was diagnosed with lymphoma andthat was a hard and dark time in my life. While going through that in the hospital, I had my wish to think about and tell everyone about.”
    She continued, “When I think of the people at Make-A-Wish, I think of miracles, and love, and giving, because that is what they have shown me. I can’t imagine a life without them, and I am eternally grateful.”

• STORY TWO •

Katelyn Atwell
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    “St. Jude healed Katelyn physically. Make-A-Wish healed her spiritually.”
    —
Sharon Atwell

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    S HARON’S TEARS OF joy blurred the crisp, December morning—the bright blue sky dripped into the crowd of thousands lining the streets of downtown Memphis, Tennessee, bled into the streets and onto the buildings—as she watched for flames of orange and red turning the corner, dancing wildly.
    She blinked the world back into place when she saw her daughter proudly holding the Olympic flames aloft; her smile radiant as the flames, and her spirit fierce as fire.
    “Katelyn! Katelyn! Katelyn!” the crowd chanted, voices of soldiers in her battle against illness—her doctors, nurses, family, friends, church family, even strangers—marching victoriously alongside her wheelchair as she glided down Memphis’s famous Beale Street. She waved like a beauty queen, soaked in the praise, and lived in that moment, which stood still like a photograph for Sharon.
    A committee member wheeled Katelyn toward her mother, who waited on the corner of