APX Family Foundation Provides Support for Special Young Man’s Make-A-Wish Dream

The APX Family Foundation helped support  a special young man who dreamed of having his own swimming  pool.  Through the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Utah and the Rubber Ducky Derby, APX provided $5,000 to help Dallin  have his wish come true.

The following is a letter from Becky Youkstetter, Manager of Special Events with the Make-A-Wish Foundations who highlights this special young man.

Dallin is a happy teenage boy. His mom says that he finds people hilarious and loves to laugh. However, unlike most boys his age, Dallin can’t speak. When he was two he became very ill and lost his verbal skills. He also suffers from muscular atrophy, a progressive condition in which the muscles in the arms and legs begin to deteriorate and epilepsy, a seizure disorder. In spite of his physical ailments, he is a happy kid. Dallin has a huge obsession with vacuums. He loves playing with them, looking at them and even seeing advertisements for them. In fact, when he was invited to come to A Wishing Place, he was too scared to come in, until his wish granter pulled out a vacuum! That took away Dallin’s fears right away. More than anything though, Dallin loves to swim and it was no surprise that he wished for a swimming pool in his backyard.

His wish granters worked hard to get Dallin his pool while the weather was still warm and sunny so that he would have time to enjoy it before the cold set in. They even bought him a special vest that helps keep him upright in the pool. He was ecstatic when he saw his pool for the first time. His parent’s tell us that he is in the pool at sunrise and has to be dragged out of the pool after dark. He doesn’t like to share his pool though and he’ll quickly splash any possible intruders (except for mom).

Dallin was invited to come to A Wishing Place for a star raising ceremony. Each wish child receives a stained glass star that they can sign and then raise to our ceiling to join the star constellation of other wish children. The night of his ceremony his wish granters presented him with his very own vacuum! He played with it all night, but didn’t plug it in (the noise scares him.) His family enjoyed a snack of french fries, Dallin’s favorite food. It was clear that his wish granters put in a lot of effort to bring more smiles and laughter into Dallin’s life.