Helping make wishes come true
Published on: December 1, 2014
At Blue Cross, we are extremely proud of our partnership with the Children’s Wish Foundation of Canada.
Since 1989, we have provided travel insurance for wishes, including coverage for existing medical conditions for wish kids. We believe that by helping make wishes come true, kids are able to focus less on hospital visits, tests and appointments, and more on looking forward to their trip, giving them energy and hope to go on.
Our team works very closely with the individuals that spend their days granting wishes. Leah Kostka, the manager of wish granting in Ontario, shared a story with us about two special wishes.
“Last winter we granted wishes for two children who wanted to attend the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. The wishes were wonderful, but required months of careful planning and coordination for flights and ground transportation, in addition to arrangements for special travel visas, accommodation in the Olympic Village and tickets to the events. The kids were treated like royalty in Sochi, making several television and radio appearances. In a television interview on the day before the game, two players from Team Canada told one of our wish kids that they would do all that they could to win the gold for her – and they did. It was an amazing story!”
When our team asked Leah what the toughest part of her job was, she told us that she struggles with the emotions associated with working with kids who have life-threatening illnesses and the families who deal with the most difficult circumstances imaginable.
“It gives me great perspective on life to appreciate how lucky I am to have a healthy child at home. To witness every day how families deal with such difficult circumstances in their lives with strength and hope is very humbling, and I have the utmost respect for our wish children and their parents, who all manage to go through the journey of their illnesses with such optimism and perseverance! In many wishes, our wish children and their families are my heroes!”
At Children's Wish, they say that joy is a wonder drug and at Blue Cross, we are honored to contribute to that joy.