By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
A group of volunteers has been helping make the dreams of chronically ill children come true since 1980
The Dream Factory began in Kentucky in 1980 with one chapter and has since stemmed into the largest all volunteer children’s wish granting organization in the country with 37 chapters.
The Dream Factory is similar to Make-A Wish, but Northwest Missouri chapter volunteer Rita Hook says there is one key difference
“We grant dreams to children between the ages of three and 18 with a chronic or critical illness, our children do not have to be terminal, critical and chronic,” Hook tells host of the KFEQ Hotline Barry Birr.
Hook says the organization grants all kinds of dreams for these children
“The biggest one by far is Disney World, we do have shopping sprees occasionally, right now we have a 15-year-old girl that wants a she shed, so we’re working on that,” Hook explains.
Hook says some of the more common requests also revolve around going to sporting events or meeting athletes.
Hook says the organization has made several dreams possible, and the guidelines to provide that dream is around $6,500.
Hook says there has been a struggle in raising funds for the group, but several fundraising efforts have helped raise money.
“We had a volunteer in Trenton in last year that put on a concert of Rhonda Vincent, he had been with the Dream Factory over 30 years and he had come to know her personally, long story short he pretty much single handedly raised over $40,000 for our chapter, that was the money that was cleared after the concert, and that’s a huge thing for us,” Hook says.
There will be fundraisers coming up next month with a Music Bingo at the Eagles on October 11th and a tenderloin dinner on October 18th.