About Us

Make-A-Wish Middle Tennessee grants the wishes of children who have reached the age of 2½ and are under 18 years old, and have life-threatening medical conditions, to enrich their human experience with hope, strength, and joy.

The imaginations of children referred to us serve as the backbone of our organization. There are five types of wishes the children choose from:

• I wish to go
• I wish to be
• I wish to have
• I wish to meet
• I wish to give

For a child to be eligible for a wish he or she must be referred by a doctor, social worker, parents, or they can even refer themselves. The doctor must sign a document stating that the child has a life-threatening illness.

• Make-A-Wish Middle Tennessee serves 38 counties in the Middle Tennessee area, granting between 90 and 100 wishes each year.
• The staff Make-A-Wish Middle Tennessee consists of only 5 full-time and 3 part-time employees. We rely on volunteers to help make wishes come true.
• More than 100 Middle Tennessee volunteers are wish granters, trained to help grant wishes of deserving children.
• 100% of the funds raised by the Make-A-Wish Middle Tennessee stays in Middle Tennessee
• 75% of every dollar donated to the Make-A-Wish Middle Tennessee goes into making these wishes come true.
• The average cost of a wish is about $7,000.
• Donors can Adopt-A-Wish^® to designate that 100% of the funds donated goes toward the adopted wish.
• More than 1000 wishes have been granted in Middle Tennessee since the chapter was founded in 2000.
• Frequent Flier miles are one unique way to support our mission. It takes about 150,000 miles to send a family to Walt Disney World® Resort.

Since 1980, the Make-A-Wish Foundation has given hope, strength and joy to children with life-threatening medical conditions. From our humble beginnings with one boy’s wish to be a police officer we’ve evolved into an organization that grants a child’s wish in the United States and its territories every 40 minutes.