TH UR SDA Y , A P R I L 2 7 , 2017
COUNTY WIDE YOUR HOME AND FAMILY NEWS FROM ALL OF KENDALL COUNTY
KendallCountyNow.com
Photos provided
Joshua Schneider of Plano and his family took a once-in-a-lifetime trip Feb. 19-24 to California with the Make-a-Wish program. Joshua, who has muscular dystrophy, wanted to see where Monarch butterflies migrate for the winter.
Wishes with wings
Plano boy’s Make-a-Wish trip features butterflies, space shuttle and ‘Wheel of Fortune’ By ALLISON SELK news@kendallcountynow.com
J
oshua Schneider of Plano watched two Monarch butterflies frolic in the air, but when the two fell into water, Joshua was given one of the butterflies and taught to gently blow on its wings until they dried enough for it to fly out of his hands and into a eucalyptus tree. “That was my favorite part,” 11-year-old Joshua said. The Schneider family took a once-in-a-lifetime trip Feb. 19-24 to California with the Make-a-Wish
program. Joshua was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy when he was 7 years old after his parents Chuck and Stephanie noticed he wasn’t hitting benchmarks like other children around him. After assessments at Lurie Children’s Hospital, he was diagnosed. “He’s getting slowly weaker. He now has a mobility scooter which helps him get around better. It will be a lifelong process of mobility for Joshua. Now he can get out of the scooter and can walk a little here and there. As a child he was reluctant to get the scooter because he doesn’t want to look
different,” Chuck said. After one of Chuck’s coworkers mentioned the Make-a-Wish program, he began the application process where he had to talk about his son’s ailment, the organization spoke with the family doctor and the recipient had to be of terminal or serious medical status. According to Illinois.wish. org, the goal of the organization is to grant wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich human experience with hope, strength and joy.
See MAKE-A-WISH, page 9
A volunteer at the Monarch Butterfly Grove brought in a Monarch from a butterfly waystation for Joshua Schneider to release. “That was cool because you don’t have a butterfly sit on your hand every day or get to see one up close. Usually you get three feet from one and it flies away,” Joshua said.