Theater for wishing well unveiled

Saturday had dawned cold, and around 10 a.m., it was still cold outside of the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory. But inside on the second floor, in a space allocated to Make-A-Wish of Vermont and Northeast New York, it was warm and bright with the potential of wishes fulfilled. And hugs. Lots of hugs.

The warm and fuzzy occasion was the unveiling of the new Wish Discovery Theater at the Make-A-Wish Wishing Space in Shelburne.

A group of Wish Kids attended, and as they waited for the ribbon cutting, they decorated cookies and dispensed hugs.

Then they were herded into the Discovery Theater, a 180-degree immersive theater with a huge screen filled with brightly colored swimming fish and turtles. The underwater animation was appropriate because, after the kids filled the room, sprawling on soft bean bag furniture, they saw an animated movie of Jamie Heath telling the story of her book “Wishes Are Medicine: How Make-A-Wish Gave Me Hope and Helped Me Heal.”

Her children’s book tells Heath’s story of recovery from a brain aneurysm when she was 14. Heath, of Barre, was confined to bed for a long time.

She had to relearn how to walk and to read, but when she was finally able to walk, she was slow. So slow, she says on screen, that her pet turtle could walk faster than her.

When she got involved with Make-A-Wish, her turtle provided inspiration for her wish — to swim with sea turtles. Make-A-Wish, the nonprofit organization whose mission is fulfilling the wishes of seriously ill children, sent Heath to Hawaii where she, in fact, swam with sea turtles.

“As I began counting down the days to my trip, something magical began to happen. I was starting to feel better. I was walking better. I was reading better,” the animated Heath said in the video that played in the Discovery Theater. “My wish had given me hope. My wish had given me strength.”

After her wish was granted, Heath continued to get better. She began to walk faster. She even began to play sports again.

One day Heath’s mother told her that she was no longer like a turtle anymore, but Heath disagreed: “But I am. I’m just like one of those baby turtles fighting through the ocean, and I’m going to be one of them that makes it.”

Like so many children who have had their wishes fulfilled, the experience was healing for Heath, so healing that today she is an adult and a wish manager for Make-A-Wish.

The $120,000 Discovery Theater was made possible by an in-kind donation from Vermont Construction Company, which supplied the materials and nine months of labor to build it.

The company’s co-founder, David Richards, was at the unveiling with his family and became choked up during a press conference discussing what the theater had meant to him and Vermont Construction Company. The partnership seems like “a perfect fit” for his company because they build houses and Make-A-Wish builds community.

“Granting wishes is like raising a barn where the real magic is in all the hands that come together to make it happen,” Richards said.

Jamie Hathaway, president and CEO of Make-A-Wish of Vermont and Northeast New York, said the goal of the Discovery Theater is to make every contact a child has with the Make-A-Wish fun.

The space is intended to inspire the kids it helps to decide on what wish they want to ask for.

“This is a space which inspires the imagination and lets kids know that they have agency over this part of their illness,” Hathaway said. “The journey that these families are on is really scary.”

He came to the realization that his organization’s job is to confront fear with love.

“Look at all these people work. Work is love made visible, right?” Hathaway said. “My work is love made visible.”

Leaving after the unveiling, things seemed warmer outside than the few degrees rise in temperature indicated.