Sky high wishes for twelve area children

The make-A-SWish Foundation grants hundreds of wishes nationwide each year.

Usually the wishes involve attending a sporting event of meeting a celebrity. But Monday a group ofchildren got to experience something different.

One of those kids was Connor Underwood. We spoke to him beofre he went on his journey and the eight year old had only a few words to describe what he was about to do today.

“I feel so excited,” he said.

He and 11 other children got to fly on a private jet. But they weren’t just ordinary passengers. They even got to sign the jet.

Joan Mazak, the President and CEO of Make-A-Wish Colorado, told us how the partnership and International Jet Aviation works.

“They call Make-A-Wish and we’re allowed to come up with kids who want to ride in a Lear Jet,” she said.

Today’s trip is something exciting for a young manwho has gotten a bad break in life.

“Connor has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. It’s a fatal genetic disorder similar to ALS (Amayotrophic Lateral Sclerosis),” said Liisa Underwood.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation is known for granting wishes to children like Connor, but today’s flight is above and beyond that.

Mazak said, “this is just something extra that we get to do.”

Mazak says that the most popular wish is to go to Disney World, but Connor wanted to go to somewhere completely different.

“His first wish was to go to space,” said Liisa Underwood.

Eventually he settled on a destination a little closer to home.

He said, “I went to the Bahamas and I swam with the dolphins.”

For Liisa, it’s more than she could have hoped for for her son.

“I’m completely grateful and…a little emotional,” she said.

Even though there is no cure for Connor’s condition, he still has big plans for his future.

“I want to become a space scientist and a physicist,” he said.

Today – if only for a few minutes – all of the children on the Make-A-Wish flights got to reach for the sky, just like Connor is planning to do someday.