| Joan Mazak
“Is Jennifer home?” it asked when Joan Mazak opened the door. The “KIMN Chicken,” as it was known around town, was a local radio mascot. Actually a man dressed up in a chicken costume, the KIMN Chicken’s normal duties included showing up at ribbon cuttings, shopping mall openings, football games, and other public places to promote the station. But today the KIMN Chicken was doing something a bit out of the ordinary; he was visiting a very sick little girl—Joan Mazak’s eight-year-old daughter, Jennifer—who had made a special request to meet him. “It was the highlight of her life,” recalls Joan. “The KIMN Chicken hung out with Jennifer all day. They walked around the neighborhood. All the other kids wanted to touch him but he would only let Jennifer. He was her special friend, and that made her so proud. When he left, he gave her a little stuffed chicken, which she hung onto until she died.” Sadly, Jennifer did die, three weeks later. But the visit by the KIMN Chicken, which brought her such unexpected pleasure, inspired Jennifer’s parents and a group of their friends to launch the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Colorado, an organization that grants wishes to children suffering from life-threatening or terminal illnesses. A divorced mother of two girls, Joan Mazak’s life revolved around the care of her oldest daughter, Jennifer, who had been born with biliary atresia, a serious liver condition. Because she had to devote most of her day to Jennifer, Joan had long since given up any thoughts of having a career. At the drop of a hat, Joan may have to rush her daughter to the hospital. That meant the car always had to be filled with gas, the refrigerator always had to be filled with food, and there always had to be a place lined up where Joan could drop off her other daughter in case she had to remain at the hospital with Jennifer. It was a hectic and emotionally-draining existence. By the time she was eight years old, little Jennifer had been hospitalized 84 times and undergone 17 surgeries. While they prolonged her life, the surgeries reached the limit of their effectiveness. The only hope was a liver transplant. In 1982, that process was experimental, expensive, and political. “You had to fly to Philadelphia just to qualify,” says Joan. “If you did, they sent you home with instructions to raise a quarter of a million dollars and to find a Lear jet you could borrow in the event a donor was found.” And finding a donor was like finding a needle in a haystack. Joan’s parents moved in to help her, which freed Joan to take a part-time job in the evening tending bar at a local hotel. She’d care for Jennifer all day, run to the hotel at 4:00, work until 8:00, and run back home. “It was easy money,” says Joan. And she was meeting people. Although she didn’t know it at the time, a number of her co-workers would later end up helping her start Make-A-Wish. When the media learned of Jennifer’s need for an immediate transplant, they jumped on the story. The publicity from radio and television stories raised both awareness in the community, and money. Donations poured in and Lear jets appeared. A friend asked Joan what Jennifer would like if she could have any wish in the world, and they came up with the idea of a visit from the KIMN Chicken. But in spite of the outpouring of goodwill, Jennifer’s little body gave out before the Mazak family could reach its goal of obtaining a liver donor. She died on September 10, 1982. Understandably devastated, Joan survived this low period in her life by taking one day at a time. When she could focus again, she began thinking about the nearly $50,000 that had been raised for Jennifer’s liver. What should she do with the money? A few months earlier, she and Jennifer had watched a show on television about a small company in Phoenix that granted wishes for terminally ill children. “We both thought it was kind of neat,” recalls Joan. Now Joan wondered if she could start something similar in Denver with the unused funds. She talked with her ex-husband, Jennifer’s father (with whom she had an amicable relationship). She also tossed the idea around with her pals at the hotel. Her friends encouraged Joan to contact the original, and at the time the only, Make-A-Wish Foundation in Phoenix. With the organization’s blessing, Joan hired a lawyer to draw up the necessary papers and bylaws for a non-profit organization. She made several people from the hotel the Foundation’s first Board of Directors—a waiter, the maitre de, an accountant, an administrative assistant, and a salesperson. Joan became President and her ex-husband, Vice President. Thus, the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Colorado was born. “I thought we’d put in about one day of work a month, maybe grant two or three wishes a year, and that our original funds would probably last us a lifetime,” laughs Joan. Initially, Joan and her partners took their time getting publicity, afraid that two or three wish requests might come in at once and they wouldn’t know what to do. Their first wish was a fish wish. “There was a little
boy who was dying of cancer, and all he wanted to do was catch a
fish,” recalls Joan. As chief wish-granter, it was Joan’s
job to coordinate the wish. She got everybody to pitch in. The Public
Service Company donated $10,000 and a helicopter to fly the boy
and his family from the town of Bennett to Lake Dillon. The Bennett
Fire Department drove the boy to the helicopter in their fire truck,
with sirens blaring. The warden at Lake Dillon stocked the lake
so full of fish there was no way In the early years of Make-A-Wish, Joan worked from her home. When a wish came in, she’d scramble to get it together as quickly as possible. Still deeply saddened by the loss of her own daughter, Joan found that focusing on making someone else happy took her mind off her own troubles. The Foundation granted all kinds of wishes, from visits to Paris to visits with grandma, from new bedroom furniture to new entertainment centers, even trips to Disney World! When she wasn’t busy coordinating wishes, Joan was learning the ins and outs of running a non-profit organization. “I learned mostly by making mistakes,” she says. One of her most memorable mistakes occurred just after Make-A-Wish had moved into its first office, five years after its creation. The so called office amounted to a closet-sized space with a donated copier that worked sporadically, a card table, two chairs, and a telephone. The Board had just voted to officially hire Joan and to pay her a small salary, which meant she could quit bartending and focus all of her energy on the Foundation. “One day we got a call from a group of little old ladies who had held a bake sale and wanted to donate the proceeds to Make-A-Wish,” says Joan. “They insisted I drive across town and have my picture taken with them. I figured the donation would be about $20.00, so I tried to convince them just to mail it to me. After a while they got kind of ticked off and decided to drive to her office themselves. They told me to be sure to have a camera ready. When they got there, they handed me a check for $18,000!” “That was my very first lesson with donors, a lesson I’ve never forgotten,” says Joan. “Now I never say ‘no’ to meeting with anyone.” Having an office helped the young Foundation show the community that it wasn’t just a fly-by-night venture. So did the inception of the Make-A-Wish parent company. Ever since the Phoenix Make-A-Wish was profiled on television, people like Joan had been inspired to start similar organizations in their own states. Now they joined forces, and Joan was asked to be one of the founding members of the national board. “Rubbing shoulders
with Rhoades scholars and other bright people on the national board,
many of whom had a lot more education than I did and knew a lot
about running non-profits, really built my self-esteem. It made
me feel important, sometimes too important,” she admits. “One
of my personal lessons has been that even when you’re enjoying
success and doing good work, it’s important to keep things
in perspective.” It’s funny. Sometimes the worst thing in your life can lead to the best thing in your life. That’s what Joan Mazak says about Make-A-Wish. She still identifies with grieving parents and is reminded of Jennifer each time she meets a sick child. But she cautions parents not to forget the other living children in their family. “It’s easy to do when you are wrapped up in your own sadness and the suffering of one child. Actually, everyone in the family is going through a tough time.” Today, Make-A-Wish Foundations across the country grant some 11,000 wishes for sick children and their immediate families each year. Nearly 200 are granted by the Denver chapter, where Joan now works with a staff of ten. “When we started Make-A-Wish, there was no such thing as an organization dedicated to making people happy,” says Joan. “We changed that.” (Story
by Shae Isaacs) ------------------------------------------------------- We are looking for true stories of people who have been inspired to overcome adverse circumstances or physical conditions to make something more of their lives than they — or others — may have thought possible. If you are such a person, and you would be willing to share yourself with The Pathfinder Project, we’d like to hear from you. Please use our Story Mail-In Form as a guide to tell us your story. Thank you.
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