Friday 31st October 2014:

Well today we are off for our return visit to GKTW  in Kissimmee ...we being myself, Jane, my friend for the past 49 years and her friend Viv who was brave enough to join us as a volunteer at this wonderful village whose motto is " Where  Hope  Inspires Happiness". Not brave enough as in the village is a scary place but brave enough to join us!m!!

For those who didn't read my blog last year let me explain the reasons for this adventure.

For the past ten years I have been a volunteer for the wonderful charity Make A Wish UK, a charity that provides wishes for children aged between 3 and 17 years of age who are suffering from life threatening illnesses. These children are allowed one wish from the charity and incomes from one of the following categories 1. To go. 2. To be 3. To meet 4. To own  5. To experience. Take a look at www.makeawish.org.uk for more information about the charity where you can read of the wonderful work they do for not just the child who is poorly but for their whole family, providing cherished memories for them all.

The most popular wish was to visit Disney in Florida, approximately 80% in fact chose this and unfortunately from January this year the charity have had to stop the  Florida wishes so that they were able to grant even more wishes to who children that were put forward for a wish. Wishes to Disney are still granted but now they go to Disney, Paris instead and if it is a swim with dolphins wish the child can go to Portugal.

Give Kids The World was founded in 19?? by a Mr Henri Landwirth, a Austrian Jew who was himself a survivor of concentration camps during Hitlers reign of terror, including Autszwich . Henri arrived in the US on a cargo ship with $20 to his name and worked his way up the hospitality hotel business from the lowest menial job to eventually owning the hotels. At one point in his career he was asked to help fulfil a very ill child's dream to go to Disney, they were not quick enough and the child died before the wish could be granted. Henri swore then that he would do his best not to let that happen again as so GKTW came into existence. There is so much to write about this man and I would recommend reading his book The Gift of Life to find out more and to look at www.givekidstheworld.org. 

Now for those who know me, Allan, my husband since his retirement in 2003 has an annual adventure, a trek somewhere in the world which entails lots of 'roughing it', now being a 5* lady I decline to join in his trips - okay I also don't do tents or digging holes to go to the loo either so GKTW is my adventure and I love it.

Jane came with me last year for 2 weeks of my 3 and is not only back again but this year she has bought her friend Viv along too and we start our first shift on Monday so watch this space.

Now last year when we got on the plane, Jane asked the stewardess that as we had been friends for nearly 50 years could we please have a glass of champagne each, she very kindly obliged as did the lovely steward that I asked today but he has gone one better........we had our glass each before take off and having told him about GKTW and MAW he has just come over and given me a bottle of champagne as a token of his admiration of what we are doing ....what a lovely young man!!!

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