By David Kilby, Staff Writer
MONROE — The Make-a-Wish Foundation has built a castle in Monroe to prove once again dreams can come true.
The castle, called the Samuel and Josephine Plumeri Wishing Place, is located on Perrineville Road just off Route 33 and had its last of three steeples installed last Friday.
The Make-a-Wish Foundation of New Jersey held an official ceremony to mark the occasion.
The Make-a-Wish Foundation grants the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength and joy, reads a press release given at the event last Friday.
The foundation grants 400 to 500 wishes per year to New Jersey children from ages 2 to 18.
A wish begins as a request by a parent, medical professional, social worker or the child with the life-threatening illness. If the child has one of the many illnesses the foundation recognizes as life threatening, he or she is visited by a Make-a-Wish volunteer, who asks the child, “If you could have one wish, what would it be?”
Wishes granted include meeting celebrities, new electronics, room makeovers and trips to Disney World.
The foundation began in Arizona in 1980 and has since granted 250,000 wishes worldwide. The New Jersey chapter, based in Union, has granted nearly 7,000 wishes since its founding in 1983.
When the Samuel and Josephine Plumeri Wishing Place is finished, it will be the New Jersey chapter’s new headquarters.
Thomas Weatherall, president and CEO of the Make-A-Wish Foundation of New Jersey, said when members of the foundation went out to speak with children with life-threatening illnesses to ask them what wish they want granted, the members noticed the hospital room they would meet the children within “was not always the most conducive environment for the children to imagine.”
So the foundation members started asking children, “If there was a place you could visit where you could imagine limitless possibilities, what would it look like?” Mr. Weatherall said.
”The response was a castle, mostly,” he said.
So the foundation searched for ways to get the land and money to build a castle.
”Can you believe in New Jersey we had the audacity to get land for free?” he said.
Jack Morris, president of Edgewood Properties and co-owner of the Trenton Thunder and Lakewood Blue Claws minor league baseball teams, donated 14 acres of land to the project, and Joe Plumeri, chairman and CEO of Willis Group Holdings Limited in New York City, donated $2 million for the castle-like structure to be built, the largest gift in Make-a-Wish history worldwide.
The company hired to place the steeple on top of the building was Campbellsville Steeples & Cupolas, part of Campbellsville Industries Inc. from Campbellsville, Kentucky.
”We mainly build church steeples, but it was a true honor and privilege to build for Make-a-Wish,” said Brian Steiles, who works for the company.
Mr. Weatherall addressed the crowd of at least 100 people, before the steeple was placed on top of the wishing place.
”Right now it’s just a building,” he said. “You’re all at the castelization ceremony. We’re not sure if it’s a word.”
”What you see behind me is because of you,” he said to the group of about a dozen children who were granted wishes and came to see the “castelization.”
”You inspired us to build it,” he said.
He said the idea was driven by one motive, “to grant more and ever-better wishes.”
At the peak of its steeples, the wishing place is 100 feet high. When finished, it will have a wishing well, many different rooms to spark children’s imaginations, an area where people with or without medical conditions can make wishes, corporate offices and an all-purpose recreation area.
It is scheduled to be completed in the fall.
”We knew it needed to be centrally located in the state. We needed it to be by a major highway so families could get here easily,” Mr. Weatherall said.
He added, “This Monroe community has welcomed us into our arms.”
Monroe Mayor Richard Pucci also spoke at the event.
”In being mayor for going on 24 years, people say ‘you must have seen everything,’” he said. “This is truly a new one, a castelization.”
He said the township was proud to even be considered when Make-a-Wish was looking for a location for its new headquarters.
”First and foremost, we know the Make-a-Wish children are special to everyone, not just members of our community,” the mayor said. “There is nothing we can accomplish that comes even close to having you with us.”
He said when people from the area heard Make-a-Wish was building its new headquarters in Monroe, they all wanted to know what they could do to help.
”Whatever you need from this day forward, to make this a true success, which it already is, don’t hesitate to ask,” he added.
Mr. Weatherall said the foundation has granted 6,852 wishes since its founding in New Jersey in 1983, not including the five that were granted over Memorial Day weekend.
He said the foundation had humble beginnings, starting in a back-alley garage in Elizabeth, and just gained popularity as it inspired children with medical conditions to hope and believe.
”We pick up where medicine and science leave off,” he said.
He added, “This building represents enduring strength, but is also magical and somewhat whimsical. It’s a castle the Make-a-Wish children can call their own.”
Just the fact the building was built during a recession is an unlikely granted wish, he said.
”Wish kids said, ‘We want it now,” he said. “They don’t have time to doubt.”
He said two children go home every day with the news they’ve been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness.
Grant Gallagher, 15, of Englishtown, was diagnosed with nonHodgkins lymphoma when he was nine, but has been cured. When he was 11, the foundation granted him his wish to meet Keifer Sutherland, of the TV show, “24.”
”We thought we were just going to shake hands and that’s it, but we spent hours on the set,” Grant said.
When he was ill, he couldn’t go out, and “24” helped him get through the hard times, said his mother, Jayne.
”Keifer said that’s the best reason for doing the show,” she said.
Jonathan Volpe, 9, is a resident of Monroe who has lymphoma and had a wish granted by the Make-a-Wish Foundation.
Joanne Ping, a volunteer of the foundation from Manalapan, arranged an interview with Jonathan last year, and he told her he wanted to go to Disney World. Months later, in June 2010, Jonathan’s wish was granted.
His mother, Carla, said he is hoping the castle makes a lot of kids happy and brings joy to a lot of families.
”I really enjoyed putting on the roof,” Jonathan said after the event.
He also told his mother he wants to come back and be a volunteer for the foundation some day.
