Every year, Make-A-Wish highlight one special wish that was delivered during the year, to show the real impact your donations make on a family, and how the granting of that wish becomes a beacon of hope in a child’s life.

Make -A-Wish: Grace’s Story

Grace, aged 17, knows the power of hope. Throughout Grace’s childhood she has had to face many battles due to her condition complicated by a rare and crippling neurological diagnosis. Grace’s journey was marked by pain, hospital visits, and a life-changing paralysis as her immune system attacked her spinal cord leaving her with permanent damage.

While Grace’s body is compromised, with her illness leaving her a wheelchair user, her story is one of hope and resilience. When our volunteers met her and discussed what her wish might be, her face lit up when she mentioned meeting Gerry Murphy, a meteorologist known for his appearances on RTÉ weather forecasts in Ireland. Grace and her family sing “Gerry is on the telly” every time the weather forecast is about to begin and Grace wanted to ask him how he finds out what the weather will be like and see behind the scenes.

Her special interest in geography and in particular the weather systems, allowed Make-A-Wish to deliver the most special of wishes this year. Grace’s wish day began with a limousine ride to RTÉ, where she met Gerry and took the helm in studio, presenting her own weather broadcast and learning more about meteorology from the expert. Her smile shone as brightly as the stars, and she described it as “a dream come true.”

Make-A-Wish had one more very special surprise on the day - Grace was invited into the Late Late Show studio in RTE where she put Gerry under the spotlight and may have learnt some trade secrets!

Grace’s dad, Brian, emphasised how ‘wishes are big and small, but they mean the world to the kids and their families.’ This was a day Grace will remember forever, one where the confines of her illness were forgotten, and she shone like the brightest star in the sky. It has given her the will to keep studying and fighting to overcome her illness.