Our nonprofit is helping to send a Middlesex County girl to Walt Disney World Resort

In celebration of World Wish Day and as a way of giving back to the organization that helped make the dream of our nonprofit’s namesake come true, The Marisa Tufaro Foundation is elated to announce that for the second consecutive year it has partially funded a child’s wish with a generous donation to Make-A-Wish New Jersey.

Through the benevolence of our supporters, The Marisa Tufaro Foundation is helping to send a girl from a Middlesex County elementary school and her family to Walt Disney World Resort in Florida this summer.

The girl, whose identity our tax-exempt nonprofit is not at liberty to divulge, was born with a complex cardiac defect that required surgical intervention and poses daily challenges.

The Marisa Tufaro Foundation, a tax-exempt nonprofit established in loving memory of Marisa to help Middlesex County children in need, recently reached out to Make-A-Wish New Jersey to inquire about the possibility of partially sponsoring a child’s wish. The foundation had just one stipulation – the girl or boy had to be a Middlesex County resident.

Make-A-Wish New Jersey provided information about its Adopt-A-Wish program and shared a variety of wish requests for the foundation to consider. The list contained no names or specific information whatsoever about the children, other than their age, medical ailments in three words or less and a brief synopsis of each boy or girl’s wish. The Marisa Tufaro Foundation’s eight-member board of trustees wished it had the resources to honor all of the requests, but unanimously selected the Middlesex County girl who “wanted to visit Disney World to see the castle and meet the princesses” because Marisa loved Disney and she too was born with a complex cardiac defect.

In late February, The Marisa Tufaro Foundation received a letter from Make-A-Wish New Jersey, thanking our nonprofit for making a donation that “has allowed Make-A-Wish New Jersey to take another step towards (its) vision of creating life-changing wishes for every eligible child in the Garden State” and for helping “to transform lives one wish at a time.”

Make-A-Wish New Jersey has granted more than 10,000 life-changing wishes over the past 36 years to children between the ages of 2 ½ and 18. The organization went to remarkable lengths three years ago to make Marisa’s wish come true.

Long before Make-A-Wish became involved, Marisa emailed to Mattel a letter and drawing of a doll she designed, named Petricia Pan, in the spirit of the toy company’s Ever After High collection. In her correspondence, Marisa wrote in part: “When I grow up I want to design doll outfits as my dream job. I truly hope you can take this doll into consideration and that you can make her a reality. It would mean the world to me to have my idols make a character for me that I created.”

Upon the request of Make-A-Wish, Mattel brought a prototype of the doll to life with every detail meeting Marisa’s specifications. Volunteers from Make-A-Wish delivered the doll to Marisa in specially designed packaging with an accompanying letter and artist renderings. Words cannot convey her elation.

Make-A-Wish arranged for Marisa to fly to Mattel’s headquarters in California to meet and collaborate with the design team, but the trip sadly never took place due to her illness.

Marisa was born with a complex cardiac defect that required six open-heart surgeries. A heart transplant, which was supposed to extend Marisa’s life, tragically cut it short after a postoperative complication developed into a rare form of cancer, to which she succumbed following a valiant battle on January 30, 2017. Despite being hospitalized for more than two years and maintaining hundreds of doctor’s appointments, Marisa lived a vibrant life that inspired.

Last year, The Marisa Tufaro Foundation partially funded the Make-A-Wish of Shane O’Donnell, son of Middlesex High School Athletics Director Mike O’Donnell, who granted our nonprofit permission to share the incredible story of how our foundation wound up being randomly paired with his family.

Tom Weatherall, President and CEO of Make-A-Wish New Jersey, had the following to say last year regarding the connection between the O’Donnells and The Marisa Tufaro Foundation:

“Make-A-Wish New Jersey is celebrating our 35th year of advancing our mission to children in New Jersey who need us most,” Weatherall said. “I’m lucky enough to be on this team for just shy of half that time, and if there’s anything I’ve learned over this time, from witnessing thousands upon thousands of wishes, is that each and every one of them, although sometimes they may look similar from the outside, are as distinct and unique as a snowflake or a fingerprint. And this story of the Tufaros and O’Donnells simply serves to solidify this. What a beautiful and touching story, bridging two inspiring and powerful wish family stories.”

Below is a video about World Wish Day featuring two of the many loved members of Marisa’s outstanding medical team: Dr. Linda Addonizio, Program Director for Pediatric Cardiomyopathy, Heart Failure and Transplantation at New York Presbyterian; and Rose Rodriguez, Certified Pediatric Nurse Practitioner and Program Director of Advanced Practice Registered Nurses at New York Presbyterian.