OUTDOORS MARK PAPOUSEK The Power of a Wish Over the past 15 years, I have been blessed
to be able to help raise a lot of money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Eastern Ontario. And through that experience, I have met many wonderful children with life-threatening medical conditions who have received their wish. To see their faces and to hear their stories when they come home is truly an amazing thing. Tijan, an Ottawa Valley lad, was 17 when
his wish came true. Tijan has Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy and is confined to a wheelchair. But that doesn’t stop him from doing what he likes the most, something we both share -- a love for fishing and the great outdoors. Chris, Tijan’s father, takes him every chance he gets. Whether it’s helping him into a boat in summer to troll around Muskrat Lake up Cobden way, or sitting in the family van, jigging on a frozen lake ice fishing, Tijan loves to fish. Tijan’s wish was to get away on a fishing
trip with his dad, uncle and grandfather. My wife, Bev, works at the Make-A-Wish Foundation office, and she put this wish together for Tijan. The mandate of the Make-A-Wish
Foundation is to help make wishes come true.
I had the opportunity to be at Tijan’s home the day he received the details of his wish and the excitement was unbelievable! Tijan and his family were to be flown to Winnipeg and then transported to a beautiful lodge on Lake of the Woods. For three days the four anglers caught every
species of fish in the lake including a ton of walleye, Tijans favourite. When he returned from his wish, Tijan wanted to help the Make- A-Wish Foundation raise funds, and here is what happened. Every September, I hold a golf tournament
at the Pakenham Golf Club along with my fundraising team, the Y101 Boot Scooters. The proceeds from this event go to the Make-A- Wish Foundation. I asked if Tijan would like to come to the golf tourney for the dinner and talk about his wish and what it meant to him. Along with his dad, Chris and sister Tijanna, he readily agreed to be there. It got very quiet as the 230 people in
attendance listened intently to Tijan’s story of how his wish came true. You could feel something special happening in the room as he explained the blessing he felt by receiving the wonderful gift from caring strangers. As I started the fundraising auction for the
event, a gentleman brought up a $50 bill and told me that this would be the start of Tijan’s next fishing
trip.After 40 minutes of auctioning and a steady stream of people donating to the next fishing adventure for Tijan, we had amassed a total of $1200. I took Tijan and his dad aside at the end of
the evening and told them how much money had been collected, and I tried to give it to them for Tijan’s next trip.Tijan told me to hold on to it because he would only make the trip if my son, Stephen, and I would join the two of them for the adventure. Over the winter months I made contact with an old friend, Ian Scrimshaw, who owns Open
58 BOUNDER MAGAZINE
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