Go on, Make a Wish Wish of a Lifetime program makes dreams come true for seniors. By Nick Fortuna

Go on, Make a Wish Wish of a Lifetime program makes dreams come true for seniors

8 By Nick Fortuna

Debbie Grubb has never seen a kangaroo, a lemur or the adorably bug-eyed rainforest mammal known as a kinkajou, but she knows what their fur feels like and what they smell like, and in her mind’s eye, the picture is crystal clear.

Grubb, 72, who was born blind and has become a prominent advocate for the disabled, had an experience to remember in November 2016, when she got to make some new friends at the Exotic Animal Experience attraction in Orlando. She’s among 15 residents from Freedom Village Bradenton to have their wishes granted by the Wish of a Lifetime program, which has made dreams come true for almost 2,000 seniors since it was founded in 2008.

Wish of a Lifetime was started by former professional athlete and business executive Jeremy Bloom to honor his grandmother, Donna Wheeler, who helped raise him. With funding from corporate sponsors, the nonprofit has created rewarding and life-affirming experiences for seniors in all 50 states. Wish of a Lifetime started out modestly, with about 10 wishes granted in its first year, but it’s on track to finish 2019 with about 250 wishes granted. Any senior may apply, and the program receives hundreds of requests each year.

From every dollar contributed to Wish of a Lifetime, 75 percent goes toward fulfilling wishes, 17 percent supports fundraising efforts, and 8 percent covers administrative costs.

“There is so much life that our seniors have left to live, and yet they find themselves inFreedom Village friends cheer on Jim Willis on as he readies for his hang gliding experience. Photo courtesy of Tara Tomlinson Photography.

credibly isolated, so what Wish of a Lifetime does is provide opportunities and reminds seniors of their incredible legacies through the granting of a wish,” said Jared Bloomfield, special projects manager for Wish of a Lifetime. “I find it incredibly rewarding to unearth and tell these amazing stories.”

Grubb’s story certainly qualifies as noteworthy. She grew up around animals and has had four guide dogs over the years, including current buddies Dena, 13, and Kopper, 4. An avid reader since childhood, she especially enjoyed the adventures of Disney’s “Winnie the Pooh” and the bear’s kangaroo friend Kanga, so when it came time to select her Wish of a Lifetime, the young girl inside her knew just what to pick. With a busload of friends from Freedom Village, Grubb arrived at Exotic Animal Experience for a hands-on lesson in zoology. She said that unlike people with good eyesight, who can take in a visual all at once and hold that picture in their mind, the blind have to use descriptions from other people and senses like touch and smell to construct a mental picture piece by piece.

The residents of Exotic Animal Experience helped her do just that by being themselves. The lemur jumped on her and let her touch its fur, the kangaroo stood patiently as Grubb’s hands traced his ears, and the kinkajou seemed disappointed when Grubb ended their cuddling session. For Grubb, it was an experience to savor.

“I have a real affinity for all animals,” she said. “The animals that I saw, people had tried to describe them to me, and I had read about them, but I just wanted to touch them for a minute and experience my own version of seeing. I got a sense of them that I’d never been able to get before, and it was important to me because animals have played such an important role in my life. I’ll never forget it, and when I think about it, I always smile.”

As a young woman, Grubb became the first totally blind person to work as a teacher in her native Maryland. She has spent much of her life adJim Willis began his tandem hang gliding experience from 2,500 feet above Orlando. Photo courtesy of Tara Tomlinson Photography.

vocating for the disabled, focusing on issues such as braille literacy, accessible voting, audible pedestrian signals, educational opportunities for the blind, and the rights and responsibilities of guide dog owners. She has lived at Freedom Village since 2012, shortly after losing her husband, Frela, who also was blind.

Grubb said her goal has always been “to earn my oxygen on this Earth,” and she travels far and wide to champion her causes. But she still makes time to have a little fun, especially if it involves the comforting feel of soft fur.

“All of the animals that I got to see were so wonderful, and the experience made me very happy,” she said. “My wish of a lifetime isn’t the last thing – I’m far from over – but this was a wish that really has enriched my life because I just remember these precious little animals that I got to see, and how gentle they were. It was a wonderful experience. It filled an emotional longing that I had to understand these animals and to touch them with my hands so that I could remember them.”

Hang Gliding at Age 87

For many seniors in retirement communities, life has become more about looking

With the help of friends, Debbie Grubb, who is blind, enjoys the Exotic Animal Experience in Orlando. Photo courtesy of Linda Reitz of Coffee House Studios.

backward than about looking forward. At age 87, Jim Willis got the thrill of a lifetime by looking straight down.

On a trip to New Zealand a decade prior, Willis had been excited to go hang gliding for the first time, but the wind conditions suddenly worsened and made it too dangerous to run off the cliff and take flight. Willis always considered it a missed opportunity, but through Wish of a Lifetime, he finally got his chance in January 2017.

It was sunny and warm in Orlando that Tuesday when Willis, his wife of almost 70 years, Nancy, and a busload of friends from Freedom Village arrived at Wallaby Ranch, a well-known hang-gliding destination. An airplane lifted Jim and a professional hang glider 2,500 feet above the ground so they could begin their tandem flight.

With his friends cheering him on, Willis and the guide circled above for 15 to 20 minutes during their gradual descent, taking in distant sights like Walt Disney World before the pro skillfully landed them just a few steps from the other Freedom Village residents.

“I just absolutely loved it,” Willis said. “It was really wonderful. I always felt like I missed out on something in New Zealand, and I had this chance with Wish of a Lifetime to do it, and I grabbed it up. It was a beautiful day, and you could see for miles. You could see the busload of people who had come with us standing in a field, and they just looked like little dots down there.” Willis said he was a little nervous before taking flight, “but once you’re up there, I didn’t find it scary at all.”

Willis and his wife have lived at Freedom Village for nine years, and they took an interesting path to get there. They met through mutual friends at the University of Wisconsin and immediately hit it off. While they were expecting their first child, Jim was drafted by the Army to fight in Korea, but with the war winding down, fathers and expectant fathers were granted a reprieve.

Willis then worked at his family’s farm supply store for 13 years before becoming a loan officer at a bank and working his way up to vice president. A 90-year-old cancer survivor, Willis is a father to four, a grandfather to 15 and a great-grandfather to 22.

Willis has always had a sense of adventure, and he has the battle scars to prove it, having endured four shoulder replacements, four hip replacements and two knee replacements. Growing up in northern Wisconsin, Willis and his family would ski every weekend and looked forward to annual trips to major ski destinations like Aspen, Colorado. “That’s kind of like flying,” Willis said. “You have the same floating feeling when you’re skiing as you do when you’re hang gliding. You’re moving fast through the air, and you’re almost weightless.”

Willis and his wife keep their passports at the ready, having traveled to Japan, China, Vietnam, Australia, the UK, Russia and South America. They love Freedom Village, which Jim described as “the friendliest place I know,” but the inviting setting hasn’t quelled their wanderlust. In October, they were just about to visit Africa for the first time, spending three weeks, mostly on safari, in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Botswana.

“We’ve wanted to do this for a long time, and we figured that if we were ever going to go, we’d better go this year because you never know at our age,” Jim said. “I think that’s what keeps you going – having a goal to get to. I’ve had lots of operations, but I keep coming back and doing what I want to do to get it all in.”

A Flight 73 Years in the Making Between his service in the military and as a commercial airline captain, Charlie Grace logged 26,400 hours of flight time – more than three full years. But it wasn’t until age 91 that his career as a pilot reached its highest altitude. Thanks to Wish of a Lifetime, Grace finally got the chance to fly the P-51 Mustang, a sleek-looking, single-prop fighter-bomber designed in 1940 to do battle with the Luftwaffe’s best fighters.

Grace, a native of Cincinnati, had joined the Army Air Corps in 1944 with hopes of becoming a P-51 fighter pilot, but despite passing all the required tests, he wasn’t assigned a flight class before World War II ended. He then served in the Army Reserves before enlisting in the Air Force in 1950 and becoming an F-89 fighter jet pilot. After being discharged in 1955, Grace enlisted in the Air Force Reserves, eventually achieving the rank of lieutenant colonel before retiring with 38 years of service. He made flying his career as a civilian, spending 31 years with Republic Airlines, including 29 as a captain. It was a distinguished career, but Grace still felt that one important experience was missing from his résumé as a pilot.

“For my generation, the P-51 was the ultimate airplane,” he said. “It was the hottest fighter in World War II, and I missed out on it then. This is an airplane that you dream of. I flew jet fighters, and those were fun too, but there’s something about that old prop that made you feel like you were in a real airplane.”

Grace finally got to fly a P-51 Mustang in May 2017, seven decades after he had skipped his high school prom and final exams to join the Army Air Corps. He and 17 other residents of Freedom Village packed a bus bound for Kissimmee, and with his friends watching from a balcony positioned along the runway, Grace settled in at the controls.

This P-51 had dual controls, meaning that either Grace or the flight instructor seated just in front of him could control the plane. The flight instructor got them 1,000 feet off the ground before handing over the controls to Grace, who proved to be just about the best backseat driver one could imagine.

After climbing to 8,000 feet, Grace’s first maneuver was a clearing turn. Then came a barrel roll, an aileron roll, an Immelmann turn and a Cuban 8, all complex maneuvers that involve flying upside down for a short stretch. Grace’s flight instructor said he still had the goods.

“The instructor said he had a young fighter pilot with him in the backseat, which was a real compliment,” Grace said. “I felt so comfortable in that airplane after all these years. It’s just such a marvelous feeling to be able to do those things still and to feel like you’re 25 again.”

For his final trick, Grace pulled off a 360-degree overhead approach, banking sharply to one side as the plane begins its descent and completing a full circle before touching down.

“The airplane and I were just working together,” Grace said. “The airplane has a tenCharlie Grace realized a dream when he flew the sleek P-51 Mustang. Photo courtesy of Linda Stansberry Photography.

dency to bounce, but we came in, we touched down, and we never bounced. It was a smooth landing, and we came to a stop right in front of the balcony where my friends were standing. A couple of them were pilots, and they were very envious. The rest of them thought I was really crazy to be flying at this age.”

Grace’s memorable flight came less than a year after he had lost his wife of almost 30 years, Barbara Turner-Grace, a former mayor of Bradenton Beach, to cancer. They had met through Grace’s son, David, a doctor of internal medicine who had Barbara as a patient. Charlie Grace has lived at Freedom Village for 16 years.

Now 93, Grace said his goal is to reach 100. With memories of his dream flight fresh in his mind, he doesn’t feel his age.

“Knowing that I have done this and that very few people could have done it, I feel very proud of myself, and I feel that the people here at Freedom Village feel the same way,” he said. “I got to do the most wonderful dream of my life, and I’ll never forget it.”

Legislative Roundup: A Recap and Forecast for Health Care Issues

12 By Hayden Dempsey, Esquire Chair, Florida Governmental Law & Policy Practice Group Greenberg Traurig

After interim legislative committee weeks that ran from September through December, the 2020 Florida Legislative Session will begin on January 14 and end March 13. And although legislative leaders haven’t listed health-related issues among their top priorities for the upcoming session, the Legislature will once again be taking up a number of items that will affect Florida’s senior living providers.

The 120-member House of Representatives again will be led by Speaker Jose Oliva, a republican from Miami-Dade County. The Speaker has historically focused on health issues during his tenure in the House, and last session he passed legislation that re- pealed the Certificate of Need (CON) program for hospitals and expanded the use of telehealth services.

In October, the House announced an initiative to review every agency’s base budget as part of a reprioritization exercise to identify ways to adjust historical spending to address current priorities. The Health Care Appropriations Subcommittee in the House was charged with evaluating a total of $654.4 million, and a report on potential spending reprioritization is due by mid-January.

Meanwhile, state revenue estimators predict a slight budget surplus in 2020, but larger deficits in following years. Those predictions, as well as Gov. Ron DeSantis’ announced priorities to raise starting teacher

salaries and increase spending on the environment, could make it challenging for senior living providers that are seeking the first inflationary adjustment for nursing homes in nearly 10 years.

The 40-member Senate will again be led by President Bill Galvano, a Bradenton attorney. President Galvano passed a number of his priorities last session, including establishing a pathway for the creation of three new toll road corridors that could reshape Florida, and he recently presided over the removal of former Broward Sheriff Scott Israel.

We expect that together, Speaker Oliva and President Galvano will tackle a list of high-profile issues of interest to senior living providers, including the recreational use of marijuana and the abolition of the Constitutional Revision Commission. It would take a constitutional amendment to eliminate the Commission, which meets only every 20 years and was the source of the 2018 proposed amendment to enshrine a resident’s bill of rights in the state Constitution.

Although the minimum wage debate will not be legislative, backers of a proposed Constitutional amendment to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour have generated sufficient signatures to put the issue on the 2020 ballot. The wording of the amendment still needs state Supreme Court approval before it can go on the ballot. If it passes, however, it will undoubtedly impact senior living and long-term care providers.

Other high-profile issues that we anticipate will be considered this session include climate change mitigation; continued discussion of restoration of voting rights and Amendment 4 implementation; deceptive and targeted advertising related to vaping; the state hemp program; Florida election security; debate on e-Verify; statewide broadband service and Hurricane Michael insurance claims.