Make-a-Wish grants 40,000 wishes: Quebec teen receives ultimate dream

13-year-old Christos just recently got to live out his lifelong dream of becoming an animator when he travelled to Toronto on his 13th birthday to host Family Feud alongside Gerry Dee. All of this was organized by the Make-a-Wish Foundation who also just reached a milestone of their own by granting 40 thousand wishes.

“We talk about this amazing number, 40,000 wishes, but it’s really more than 40,000 kids whose lives have been changed,” said Lauren Donnelly, chapter director of Quebec for Make-a-Wish Canada.

“It’s entire families, parents, siblings, grandparents, coaches, teachers, everyone is involved and is affected when a child is affected with a critical illness and when a child is offered this opportunity for a wish, for joy, for excitement, for creativity, the whole community benefits,” she added.

Marianna Kagelidis, mother of Christos says his childhood wasn’t easy as he was born premature with gastrointestinal issues, leading to many difficult years filled with hospital visits. But she says his personality has always shined through the adversity.

“He was always the talker at school presentations, he had no issues doing any of that,” said Kagelidis.

“He started playing around, making his own cards, pretending he’s a game show host,” she said. “Sometimes I would even have to play with him pretending I was a contestant.”

For Christos, it all began when his grandmother asked him to watch a show with him – the Greek version of Canada’s Family Feud.

“I was thinking oh we have a show well we have a show that’s close to that here in Canada,” said Christos Sainis. “So, I’m like okay Family Feud that’s where I’m going and I’m not changing my mind that’s what I wanted to do,” he went on to explain.

It all came true for Christos on his 13th birthday when his family announced that Make-a-Wish Canada would be sending him to Toronto where he would get to host the show alongside Gerry Dee.

“My favourite part was, I mean first of all getting to meet Gerry, and getting to be on the stage of Family Feud with him,” said Christos. “I couldn’t believe it was happening, it was very nice,” he exclaimed with excitement as he remembered the moment.

Since receiving his wish, Christos hasn’t stopped – quite the opposite – he’s been busy hosting charity events and even started his own podcast.

“The CS Podcast, we are coming soon, it’s going to be great,” he said.

Everyone around Christos including his family and team members at the foundation strongly support Christos’ future aspirations and couldn’t say they are all following along with his journey and keeping tabs on him on social media where he has quite a strong presence.

“When we’re hit with a critical illness, it’s really life-shattering, we can’t think of anything else, we’re plummeted into this dark state, and having that kind of veil lifted allows the children and the families to think of the next step, to know that there’s a future coming, and to have the strength to fight through their illness and reach those future goals,” said Donnelly.

“So like Christos in pursuing his passions, having a podcast, starting his Instagram, we all follow him online, we all send him love,” she added.

Donnelly says the foundation loves granting wishes to children like Christos and that even though they’ve reached the 40 thousand wish milestone, they aren’t going to stop any time soon as they currently have more than a thousand children waiting for their wishes to come true.