SYRACUSE - Ever since she was a little girl, Anna Lopez, a 12-year-old Wawasee Middle School student, has dreamt of going to Hawaii.
Thanks to Make-A-Wish Ohio, Kentucky & Indiana, and Service Experts, she’s heading there on Sept. 1, which just also happens to be her birthday.
Thursday afternoon, the date of her trip and the details were revealed to her, surrounded by her entire school, family, school officials and area media during a Hawaii-themed school assembly.
Anna said afterward she had a little bit of a clue it was going to happen because her mom told her something was going to happen, but Anna didn’t know for sure what was going to take place. She was still surprised when she walked into the gym.
“I got in there, it was so loud, and everybody was screaming and cheering. I was shocked. I was a little bit nervous, but I warmed up really quick,” she said.
In an interview before the big reveal with her parents, Melissa and Ryan Hoover, Ryan said Anna has cystic fibrosis, “which is a disease in your lungs and it attacks your immune system and digestive system. It’s something she was born with.”
Melissa said they went to an appointment with Anna’s doctor about 1-1/2 years ago, who brought up Make-A-Wish and asked them if they’d be interested.

    Joe Phillips (R), general manager of BW/Cook Service Center, presents a $10,000 check to Juli Miller, Make-A-Wish chief mission officer. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

“They said they’d like to nominate her for the Make-A-Wish program, and within a week or two, they contacted us and said that they were granting a wish and it just took off from there,” she said. “She had three options of wishes, her top three, and her number one wish was granted. And on top of that, she wanted to be in Hawaii on her birthday and we fly on her birthday, and we’ll make it there on that day.”
The whole family of eight will get to enjoy about a week on the islands, arriving Sept. 1 and leaving Sept. 7.
“I’m very excited,” Anna said about going to Hawaii. “That was my dream place I wanted to go since I was little, and now I’m getting to live my dream.”
She said since she found out last year she was going to get her wish, she’s been super excited - and impatient.
“I’m excited that it’s finally here!” she stated.
As to why she chose Hawaii, Anna said, “It’s warm. Very warm and I want to climb a coconut tree very bad. I’ve had coconuts before and I love them. So, that’s one of my main things and then, also, marine life. I love being inside and I feel like Hawaii has the craziest things you can experience outside.”
Anna’s other two wishes included going to a ranch in Montana for a week to be a ranch hand, or to be an archaeologist somewhere.
Once they get to Hawaii, Melissa said Make-A-Wish granted that Anna will get to do a few things while they’re there.
“We’re going to do zip-lining through this beautiful place, and then participate in a luau. Then we’re going to give her surfing lessons, as well. And then she just wants to explore and hike and climb and see everything she can possibly see. So we have a lot of free time, too, but the two main things are the zip-lining and the luau,” Melissa said.
Ryan said when it comes to her cystic fibrosis, Anna is not really limited right now with what she can do. She just has medication she has to take. “Other than that, she’ll be able to do everything and be good,” he said.
“You look at her and you can’t tell what she’s dealing with, which is why this is such a beautiful thing because she gets recognized for fighting a battle that you can’t really see when you look at her,” Melissa said.
Describing Anna’s personality, Melissa said she’s “so cool.”
“She’s super adventurous and super nice and she talks to people really easily and very outgoing and makes friends. She loves to fish and be outdoors and just discover new things. She loves climbing trees. You name it, she loves to do it,” Ryan stated.
She wants to be a survivalist, Melissa said.
Wawasee Middle School Principal Brent Berkeypile said Thursday’s reveal and school assembly was “just an awesome opportunity to be able to recognize one of our own Warriors. Anna is a great young lady, does the right thing, treats people right. And what an awesome opportunity for the kids. I said it several times today: This is the type of stuff that happens on TV, you don’t actually ever see this in real life, but it’s such a cool experience for our kids also that aren’t involved to be able to witness that and experience it. It’s a cool opportunity.”
He stated the school just found out about the reveal about 1-1/2 weeks ago.

    As Wawasee Middle School students entered the gymnasium Thursday afternoon, they were given leis, streamers and other things to celebrate the announcement of Anna Lopez’s Make-A-Wish trip to Hawaii. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

“So it was a quick turnaround for when we heard about it to trying to get this all set up, but obviously there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff with Make-A-Wish, but for us as a school, we learned about it a week ago, week and a half,” Berkeypile said.
Juli Miller, Make-A-Wish chief mission officer, said they’ve been working on Anna’s wish the last nine to 10 months, working with the family.
“Once she decided she wanted it to be Hawaii, then we kind of get in motion and start putting all the planning and work together, and kind of figure out what she wants to do there, so we kind of pull all that in. So that was decided a long time ago, it’s all the planning components that came together,” Miller said.
Part of the planning involved figuring out what was best for the whole family, too, and when they wanted to make the trip.
Miller said Make-A-Wish feels very strongly about the whole family going because the family unit “is who was probably most likely with them on their medical journey, and so we like to keep that together and go on the experience together as well.”
Representatives of Service Experts took part in Thursday’s event because they did fundraisers for wishes like Anna’s. “So that’s why they’re getting to meet her and know that their dollars help support a local Wish child right here in their back yard.”
Matt Michele, operations manager at BW/Cook Service Experts, was one of a dozen people from Service Experts to help with the celebration.
“We couldn’t be more excited to have it local here at Wawasee Middle School,” he said.
BW/Cook is an HVAC company in Elkhart. As a nationwide company, Michele said they have an opportunity to make donations to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Every employee does it, and then Make-A-Wish reaches out to the company when they’re going to grant a new wish. Whichever Service Center is local then goes to the reveal, and Michele said they were excited to be a part of Thursday’s reveal as it was BW/Cook’s first.
“We always want to support the children, so if there’s a foundation that helps a child in a wish or whatever, personally, I want to be a part of that and we have a lot of parents here, so we’re just excited we can help children, help them get their wishes, so we’re just excited,” he stated.
Miller said Make-A-Wish Ohio, Kentucky & Indiana will grant 1,070 wishes this year, with about 75% involving some sort of travel. That could be to anywhere from Hawaii or California to Disney World or the Virgin Islands.
“So travel is a big piece. It’s a getaway, right? It’s an escape, and that’s what our Wish kids like, is leave this and go somewhere very tropical and be with their family.”
Explaining what their criteria for a Wish is, Miller said, “It has to have a critical medical condition. So what we mean by that is, we are working with all of our hospitals, so that the only people that can really put the stamp of approval that the child would qualify is a medical professional. So we work with social workers, doctors, child life specialists and they’re helping qualify that kid. We’re not doing that, so we work with medical professionals.”
The child has to be between the ages of 2-1/2 and 18, and they must not have received a wish from any other organization. “So we do that, too, because we want to reach as many kids as we can, so we’re very thoughtful about that as well.”
Miller said Make-A-Wish does feel like it provides kids with hope when they and their families need it most.
“But we also love doing things like this because, again, the community is a big piece of our families providing the hope and feeling the joy of a wish” being granted.