Play baseball with the pros. Fly an airplane. Be a princess for a day. Meet a celebrity. Swim with dolphins. Kids are dreamers, constantly thinking up their wildest fantasies.
For children battling a critical illness, life is full of doctor visits, surgeries, medications and more. One wish come true can give patients a chance to feel like a kid again.
One foundation, Make-A-Wish, turns fantasy into reality. In fact, the organization grants a wish to an afflicted child every 34 minutes on average. According to Make-A-Wish, health professionals believe the wish experience, coinciding with medicine, can make patients feel better emotionally and physically.
Chicago Pneumatic Power Technique (CP) put the Make-A-Wish foundation center stage at The ARA Show in Anaheim, CA. CP has a close relationship with its distributors, considering them an extension of their team, so when they found out the son of one of their sales reps, Frank Iacono of Cardinal Sales, was diagnosed with cancer, they wanted the Iaconos to know everyone on the CP team was thinking about them.
Powering wishes
Last year, the Iaconos participated in the Make-A-Wish program. To support Frank, wife Michele and son Luca, the CP team wanted to raise awareness for the foundation. They wrapped a CPG 25 generator with the Make-A-Wish logo and positioned the unit in the center of the CP booth at The ARA Show.
For every CPG 25 and CPS 110 compressor units sold at the show, CP would donate $250 to Make-A-Wish. This resulted in 20 units purchased for a total of $5,000 donated to the foundation.
“The CP team completely surprised me with this,” says Frank, whose relationship with CP spans over a decade. “Dmitri Cremo and Jonathan Cook called and told me this year the charity they picked is Make-A-Wish, to honor my family. I was taken back. It was such a beautiful thing to be recognized. It’s heartwarming.”
The CP generator branded with the Make-A-Wish logo raises awareness while powering jobsites. It joins two other generators branded for important causes—breast cancer and the Autism Society of America.
Luca’s battle
After being diagnosed with cancer in 2017, Luca, a fourth grader, was given a chemo and radiation protocol that was 54 weeks long. Luca stayed strong throughout, but, as the protocol came to an end, his last scan showed the cancer returned.
Currently, Luca is now on a new protocol. His latest scan showed the cancer had neither increased nor spread. Unfortunately, it also hasn’t lowered. “Despite the recent scan, Luca is otherwise an energetic, healthy-looking kid – he looks great,” says Michelle. “The cancer just needs to cooperate and go away.”
“My Wish,” a segment on ESPN, spent the day with the Iaconos and interviewed Luca. The narrator, Chris Connelly, asked Luca, “Why do you believe you are so strong?”
Luca—without blinking—replied, “Because I can handle this.”
Guests of the Yankees
Make-A-Wish can make incredible things happen, and once Luca realized what they are capable of he knew his wish immediately. “Luca is just a kid, so his first inclination was to go to Disney World – I told him that was fine,” says Michele. “But, I also said this is Make-A-Wish. You could dream big, bigger than anything mom and dad can give you. His eyes got really big, and said, ‘you mean like meet Aaron Judge and the Yankees?’”
A few weeks had passed when Luca woke up for just another day of school. That morning, the school principal called an assembly in the auditorium.
Sitting cross-legged with his classmates, in his Yankees garb, Luca—completely unsuspecting—watched the projector screen when his hero, New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge popped up and invited him to visit Yankee Stadium for the day. Waiting outside, a limo picked up the Iaconos along with Luca’s cousin, JT.
“Luca was thrilled. We were all so excited,” says Michele. “Honestly, Frank, JT and I were more nervous than Luca ever seemed that day. As soon as we got there, my son looked like he knew the Yankees all his life.”
Following their arrival at Yankee Stadium, Luca started out with Yankees shortstop Didi Gregorius in the batting cage. Gregorius told him if he could hit five line drives, he’d give him a bat. The confident nine-year-old made it look effortless.
Hitting line drives with Gregorius was just the beginning. Luca met leftfielder Giancarlo Stanton, getting to swing Stanton’s official MLB official wooden bat. He set the lineup with manager Aaron Boone, hung out in the dugout with Aaron Judge, turned in the lineup card to the umpires, and watched the game with general manager Brian Cashman in his suite.
“The day with the Yankees was magical—just something our family will never forget,” says Michele. “It is a bond that all of us will have and cherish the rest of our lives—to look back at pictures and just remember how truly happy we were.”
Signifying hope
Improving the lives of kids with critical illnesses, Make-A-Wish truly makes a difference. The program is known for making wishes come true, but it doesn’t just stop after the wish is granted. All participants become part of the Make-A-Wish family and stay connected through different events.
“Make-A-Wish gives kids and families hope, joy, a reason to be happy and to become part of a family of people who have been through a lot, which really gives us a sense of community,” says Michele. “It is a beautiful, fantastic organization that looks for nothing in return.”
The day with the Yankees will not be soon forgotten. But it’s the community rallying behind their family—between Luca’s school and Make-A-Wish—that Frank and Michele will always carry with them.
“To know all of these people are behind your 10-year-old son, that he is getting that kind of impact at his age is hard to even put in words,” says Michele. “It’s been really special.”
“Because I can handle this.” The words of a fourth-grader fighting a terrible disease. Make-A-Wish provided the Iacono family with the day of their lives and welcomed another courageous child into their family.
With Luca, it doesn’t take long to see the moxie and toughness he displays, key attributes professional baseball scouts love. Who knows, perhaps one day he will be hitting home runs in the classic pinstripe uniform with his biggest fans, mom and dad, cheering him on. One can dream.
Watch the “My Wish” segment, here.
