Behind The Wish - Ally Dening

I am from the South West of Western Australia. I grew up in a small town named Nannup, best known for its music festival.

I have been teaching myself French for about 13 years. And last month I started going to a formal French class. I am in an intermediate class which is good because what I find being self taught is that things that are more difficult can sometimes be easy to skip. I thought I needed external pressure to help me along with grammar and other things.

I just love the language. I did study in France for a while and that was great fun. I did a winter program there when I was in university. It was a five-week intensive that was about the relationship between France and Australia during World War 1. I have taken my partner back last year.

When I was finishing up uni I studied in New Zealand for a while I learnt Te Reo Maori during that time. I was working at a Maori theatre company. I did a Bachelor of Arts Management at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Art. I have been out of that space for a while focussing on my professional life and Make-A-Wish.

I really enjoy musical theatre and acting. I used to work at a circus school so we had lots of kids from circus programs in the school. I organised the classes and was often down in the circus tent doing this or that.

We had a performance one year as part of Perth Festival and there were child chaperoning requirements so I had 10 kids for the run of that show and the rehearsal. They were so much fun.

I work at Dept of Premier and Cabinet, you see a lot of what goes on behind the scenes. Previously I worked in the kids sport sector of government, a voucher program for kids on healthcare or concession cards and it’s about making sure kids get the opportunity to participate in sport.

Picture: Ally performing a musical solo at the Regal Theatre, Perth, in 2021.

I definitely had some awareness of the Make-A-Wish brand. And I also think I grew up volunteering and I got to a point where I was looking for something more consistent I could do. I was doing a lot of piece meal stuff. So I signed up for Make-A-Wish and Make-A-Wish reached out to me a week before another charity did so it was a very close thing!

I just got to a point where I had finished my degree and was living on my own and I was looking for something consistent I could do that still had variety within it. And I think Make-A-Wish is good for that. You can really tailor it to your own life.

I took on the Wish Granting Coodinator role in 2022 and my first term is almost up. It’s been so, so enjoyable. I have loved being able to connect people with wishes and seeing everyone’s reports coming through and hearing about wishes at every Branch meeting.

I have also taken on wishes myself. As Wish Granting Coorindator you get a few of those urgent wish calls from the team at head office so I have been across some of the wishes that can be turned around in a really short amount of time.

I think it’s been so important to me in that role knowing who the volunteers of the Branch are and where they are at.

I know where to point people at head office. Sometimes vols will want to step back and focus on their family. So sometimes I can redirect head office and ‘here’s a couple of people who might have better availability’. It’s important that people’s boundaries are known and respected.

I have done a fair few wishes now.

My first full wish was a puppy wish. He was a really sweet little boy and he wanted a labrador. And he and his little brother were running around the house they were so excited.

I have one that’s underway at the moment and I and another volunteer are looking after it. It’s probably about to go into design stage. It’s one where you hear the wish idea and say to yourself ‘we are the perfect team for this wish’.

I seem to take on a lot of wishes for girls around 12 or 13, and this particular girl is another and she’s really sweet but they take a bit to warm up. She was like ‘I don’t really know what I want’ and they finally she said ‘Well maybe I might like to do a Taylor Swift party. I want to watch the Taylor Swift movie with my friends’.

So we talked about maybe she would like to do it in a cinema and have some activities. And as we got into the details with her we asked her what the invitations would look like and she goes and gets her laptop and she’s designed them already!

So we knew then that was definitely her wish!

She was worried about some of her friends not liking Taylor Swift. But we said ‘it’s your wish, it’s your party and your friends are going to want to celebrate with you’.

It’s always about what the wish child wants and not what everyone around them might like.

It’s been really exciting and we had a great conversation with her. We are really looking forward to it.

It’s very important that it’s her 13th birthday because 13 is Taylor Swift’s favourite number.

I have had lots of puppy wishes and holiday wishes, things that are fairly straightforward. Once I was completely out of my depth when we had a wish kid who wanted a VR headset. I didn’t know the first thing about them.

You enjoy all of them but sometimes you hear the wish idea you are all over it and know you will be able to connect with the child.

Picture: Ally (third from right) and other volunteers moments after Zeth's SpiderMan wish in Perth, where the young boy caught the bad guys.

I think we make a difference by creating those moments and memories and having something to look forward to, something to get excited about and something to plan.

A lot of my older kids are involved in the planning of their wishes. They are quite specific in what they want and how they want things.

They really want to be part of designing their wishes. So they get those opportunities.

There are those really sad cases when you have children who get really unwell. We have had one where we were able to tailor the wish, change it at the last minute, and make it something his family could really enjoy and remember.

In the end they named a star after this kid who passed away pretty soon after. They got a telescope for him to look at the star but his wish was to have a star named after him so his family could always see him. And always know he was thinking of them.

I helped out with Aroha’s Halloween carnival wish. It was a great big wish. Such a sweet girl. This kid wanted to raise money for Make-A-Wish. And she couldn’t be swayed from it. Her wish was her wish.

I brought a bunch of my friends along to that and they got to see the sort of things we make happen. They still talk about it so there’s that community impact with some of our wishes.

I remember Zeth’s wish. There was a moment when he was catching the bad guys and being presented with a medal from Police so I was there. There’s all these opportunities to show up for a day on a wish you’re not actually assigned to.

It’s so good having that ongoing communication with families during the wish process.

The anticipation is so important especially for longer wishes.

I have a girl who has just turned 18 who is going to Melbourne later this year. She loves MasterChef but hates being the centre of attention so she’s going to be a fly-on-the-wall in the kitchens of some of these incredible restaurants.

As part of the anticipation, we sent her and her family to the Good Food and Wine Show recently and they loved it.

I messaged her mum to see if they ended up going and she said ‘she is going to email you today’. And then I get this beautiful email from this young girl all about the day and with some photos. And she said she was looking forward to the wish. I thought ‘oh this is gorgeous’.

My other anticipation idea for the wish ties in with MasterChef’s mystery box. They have to cook with the ingredients in the mystery box. So we are thinking of setting up a drop-off day where we drop off a mystery box for her and her sister. Something like that can create more memories for them.

You meet really lovely people through Make-A-Wish that you wouldn’t otherwise. There’s a lot of empathy that you learn. Especially in an office bearer role when you hear others say it’s difficult to contact families, when you’re trying to do something for them and sometimes volunteers will come to you and say ‘it’s really frustrating’ but then you step back and say to them ‘think about the position the family are in right now or all the other things that are going on in their lives’.

So you have to work out a plan on how to reach out to them and say ‘Hey do you want to set up a Wish Capture meeting or do you need a bit of a break’. You just try and think about the position they may be in and when things might be smooth in their lives.

You don’t know a lot about what is going on in their background. It’s transferable to life, to try and have an understanding of where people are coming from and what is impacting them. And how you can ask them what they may need in that time rather than just making assumptions.

When you have a really great wish capture at the end of a stressful week, Make-A-Wish gives you such great perspective and you get such a boost.

You’re just so keen to create something and give everything you can to make a wish the best that it can be. I think Make-A-Wish really is a big mood boost when you might get caught in the monotony of the day-to-day.

There’s always that excitement about what’s going to be created. It’s really nice to meet such lovely kids. You know that the future is in such good hands. The kids are so bright and funny and clever.

You can have the same kid three weeks later, after a great capture, and they are really unwell. It’s a whole different kid. So you sort of see a whole range of emotions. But still you can see them pick up in that meeting because they are focussing on something else.

You feel pretty unique feelings being part of Make-A-Wish. And they just make you want to share that story. Every time I come home from a wish or wish capture, I want to tell my partner all about it. You just want to tell them what you have experienced.

I think the flexibility of Make-A-Wish is great. You can definitely fit it into your schedule. As long as you are upfront with your Branch about what your capacity is, the Branches then have reasonable expectations. If you can do three fundraising events a year out of eight or nine – if you can only do a handful your presence is still appreciated.

I think being organised helps me stay on top of it. In my study I have a Wish Whiteboard where I have all my active wishes. And then sometimes I will look up and think nothing has come through on that for a while, so I’ll look into it.

We have about 25 to 35 active wishes at any one time.

I like to think I am considerate of everyone. I know I can’t be the volunteer who shows up at every single thing and has 20 wishes at once. That’s not realistic for me so I don’t feel like I necessarily need to be remembered as the volunteer who was always everywhere every time. I want to be the one who when she showed up gave her full attention and capacity and helped out people where she could and worked with everyone to create a Branch that everyone wants to stick with for long periods.

Showing up consistently is important but you don’t need to be at every single thing.

You can do things at your own pace when you’re part of Make-A-Wish. You do things when you are ready. There is a support network of vols who have been around a bit longer and happy to help you with any challenges. So there’s no need to feel overwhelmed that you need to be involved in everything.

But if you have heaps of spare time and you want to take on ever challenge then go for it: our president Elke Sprunt is definitely one of them. She is great. I think she has about 15 active wishes right now. She was President after a year. She has got four adult kids and doesn’t work full time so she has good capacity. She loves Make-A-Wish and puts so much time and effort into it.