Washington Students to Grant Taylor Kids’ Wishes

CEDAR RAPIDS - If anyone ever needed a genie in a bottle, it might be the roughly 250 students whose flooded school did not open this year.

Instead of a bottle, Washington High School students have created an application form for the students of Taylor Elementary School, 720 Seventh Ave. SW, to fill out. Taylor flooded 3 feet on its main floor and did not open this school year. School board members want students to return next fall.

The older students are not making any guarantees, but will try to grant wishes to the younger students this school year. They want each child who attended Taylor for at least half the school year last year to tell them three wishes: one big, one medium, and one small.

“Being forced to change schools can be extremely hard as a child,” said Hanna Wheeler, 16. The Washington junior who recently started the Washington-Taylor Three Wish Club. High school club members will do their best to make at least one of the wishes come true by working with area businesses.

“They can wish for something they have lost, or something they have always wanted,” said Wheeler.

Wheeler and her dad, Ben Wheeler, cooked up the idea a few weeks ago. Ben Wheeler’s “little brother” through Big Brothers Big Sisters of Cedar Rapids & East Central Iowa, Elijah Bahati, is displaced from Taylor this year.

He was the first to make three wishes. His small wish is for a Nintendo DS game, and his big wish is for a plane ticket to Atlanta to visit his cousin. The middle wish was for “a miniature car he can ride in,” said Hannah Wheeler. His sister, Kiley, wished for the same plane ticket, her own room, and a Nintendo DS.

Wheeler started the club on Facebook — a social networking online site — and more than 100 people signed up. Not all are active members, cautioned Wheeler. She also announced the group over Washington’s intercom earlier this fall, and has worked to further the club through Facebook and the school’s volunteer group, Interact. Wheeler hopes once wishes start rolling in, members of the club will start meeting in person.

Wheeler is asking for adults in Taylor students’ lives to help get displaced Taylor students’ wishes to the club. For an application, visit www.GazetteOnline.com. Later, applications also will be available at Cedar Rapids public elementary schools. They are due Oct. 10.

To donate or for more information, contact the club at: Three Wish Club, Washington High School, 2205 Forest Dr. SE, Cedar Rapids, IA 52403; or Wash-Taylor3WishClub@live.com.*

-Kristina Andino, The Gazette

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*Note: current contact e-mail is contact@taylor3wishclub.org.