Wishes for the Elderly: Nonprofits Make Dreams Come True
Older people have been treated to camel rides, airplane adventures, Vanna White.
Oct. 13, 2009— -- Sitting at the controls of an airplane this summer, John Follmer got a rush he hadn't felt in 40 years.
"It was so relaxed," the 86-year-old father of six told ABCNews.com. "It was like you had control of everything."
Follmer's trip into the skies was one of thousands of elderly wishes fulfilled by a network of nonprofit organizations that put together trips, parties or basic supplies for older people who can't afford to make their own dreams come true.
P.K. Beville founded Second Wind Dreams -- the nonprofit that sent Follmer up in a Cessna -- in 1997, after helping 92-year-old female twins who wanted a happy hour at their nursing home that included an Elvis impersonator.
"It was a scream," Beville told ABCNews.com. "That then led me to begin doing it all over the place."
Based in Georgia, Second Wind Dreams fulfills, on average, two wishes a day across the country and in Canada. Recipients must be receiving eldercare through a facility with a membership to the organization.
They've opened libraries in nursing homes, arranged for rides on a fire truck and made someone a police officer for a day. One woman, at nearly 100 years old, got to don a pink leather jacket and hop on a motorcyle.
Several years ago, Second Wind Dreams organized a camel ride for a woman in Joliet, Ill.
"She just has always loved seeing them in the circus and in movies," Beville said. "'Lawrence of Arabia' is one of her favorite movies."
So with the help of a local police department that located a camel in Wisconsin, the woman was treated to a ride on the nursing home grounds. The camel then took a tour of the oustide of the facility and looked in on bedridden residents from their windows, prompting some calls from concerned family members who were convinced their loved ones were hallucinating.
While some wishes bring smiles to the faces of volunteers, others can bring tears.
Volunteers with the Pennsylvania-based Twilight Wish Foundation are raising money to send 84-year-old Joe Burch back to Omaha Beach in Normandy, where the World War II Army veteran landed with his troops on D-Day. He was 17 at the time.
A member of the 82nd Airborne Division, "I was the second out of the plane when we parachuted in," he told ABCNews.com. Burch was wounded after landing in enemy territory, earning him a purple heart.
He wants to see the place that was torn apart by war while it is at peace.
"I'd like to go back to see how it is now," he said.
Burch, now a resident at the Park Health Nursing Home in St. Clairsville, Ohio, was discharged in 1945 but signed up for two more four-year stints and served in the Korean War. Burch said he knows some people call him a hero, and "I think it's good."
But with $3,500 more to raise to send Burch to France, his trip will have to wait.
"They're doing a great job," he said of the Twilight Wish Foundation. "I was ready to go in September when they told me, but they said they didn't have enough money to send me."
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