As the year 2023 closes, it wraps another successful campaign for a locally-based group that has spent the past four decades looking to give a moment of hope and happiness to children and young adults across the region who are facing serious illness.

With 2024 being the 40th anniversary of its founding, the people associated with Thursday’s Child can look back at a number of successes, and a future that will bring brightness to another group of people.

“Wishes take many forms,” said Noël Ferguson, one of the members of the Board of Directors for Thursday’s Child.

Between large wishes and small helps, Ferguson recalls thousands of individuals have been touched by the organization in its four decades of existence. There have been celebrity meetings, to playsets, to trips to Disney World - Thursday’s Child has provided families with experiences and memories to last forever.

This is a group that was created here, and has a group of dedicated and motivated people connected to it.

Ferguson reflected on its origins. In 1983, Noël read an article about a little girl in LaCrosse who wanted to visit her grandfather in Arizona. Back then, organizations that granted wishes and requests like that just didn’t exist in Wisconsin.

While digging about ways to help, Ferguson came in contact with a couple of people that would lead to the formation of Thursday’s Child. The first being Andrea Urbon, who at the time was a pediatric oncology social worker at UW Hospital.

Urbon, who passed away in October, was one of the founding members of the group with Ferguson. “A beautiful, vibrant soul, who lit up every room she entered,” Ferguson reflected on Urbon.

They joined forces with Ron Thorstad, President of Thorstad Chevrolet in Madison, who also read about the girl’s plight, and wanted to form a wish organization. The three of them put their heads together and, with a nonprofit status, fully formed Thursday’s Child in 1984.

Current President of the group is retired UW-Hospitals Dr. Diane Puccetti, who has been a member of the group since 1995.

Also on the board are Thorstad, Verona; Dr. Paul Dvorak, Madison; V.P Susan Hefty, Mt. Horeb; Treasurer Steven Maerz, Madison; Director Emeritus Ivan Hoffland, Prairie du Chien (who also is a founding member of the group); Jack Kussmaul, Lancaster; Sandra Meier, Potosi; Lisa Roh, Platteville; Angele Walsh, Potosi; Valerie Martin, Platteville; Kay Schmitz, Mt. Hope.

A longtime music teacher in Cassville, Ferguson recruited a number of the current board when she was a teacher. Meier first heard of Thursday’s Child through her children when they attended Cassville Elementary, where Noël was the music teacher. Sandy recalls an event where each grade held penny wars and the money raised was donated to Thursday’s Child.

When Sandy lost her daughter, Kelly, in 1992, she recalled how touched she was when Thursday’s Child gave money towards a memorial plaque with Kelly’s picture and a beautiful verse that hangs in the hallway to this day.

That led to a yearly Trail Ride Sandy holds, which splits the money between the Grant County 4-H Horse Camp and Thursday’s Child.

Walsh and Martin are both former students of Ferguson.

Walsh remembered, as a child, being touched by the many gifts that filled their classroom at Christmas time as Thursday’s Child prepared for their annual holiday project.

This group works to bring joy to a young person, whether it may be a part of their path towards healing, or bringing them that moment before they move on.

That could be symbolized in two of the more recent wishes the group was involved in, tying Caleb Wipperfurth and Kristin Coggins forever together.

Wipperfurth, Cambridge, was one of the major wishes Thursday’s Child granted in 2022. Then 17, Caleb just wanted to meet a special movie hero, and he wanted to meet him.

That star, who they have not revealed, hosted a lunch with Caleb and his family in July 2022, and for more than two hours sitting at his home in Malibu, Caleb was, in the words of his mother, “on Cloud 9.” The star then followed up by calling Caleb on his birthday a week later.

That moment was especially poignant for the Wipperfurth family as Caleb passed away that November after two battles with cancer.

Because there was such great support for Caleb in his hometown of Cambridge, with several fund raisers, a Caleb’s Crew Fund was created in his honor.

Caleb had been asked what he wanted to do with some of the money, he said he wanted to supply wishes to other kids because he knew how it felt to get one.

His family sent Thursday’s Child a $10,000 check to cover some future wishes.

Caleb’s social worker, Joyce Kilgore-Carlin, knew about this bequest and knew just who should be the beneficiary. Kristin Coggins, Janesville.

Kristin had spent 2.5 years undergoing a very rigorous treatment program for her cancer. Like Caleb, she was college-bound, but instead, after completing treatment, she is not able to stand for very long or walk very far, uses a wheelchair to get around, and faces knee and hip replacements in the coming years to get back to normal.

So it seemed fitting to recognize Kristin’s wish with Caleb’s help. She wanted to see Lady Gaga, as all throughout her two-and-a-half years of fighting cancer Lady Gaga’s music was on her playlist, motivating her through the fight against cancer.

So the group, along with Kristin’s mother - a travel agent as well as a cartographer for the city of Madison - rushed to make everything a go before Lady Gaga’s last concert in Vegas Oct. 4. Walsh made sure they had the best seats in the house for Kristin and her mom Marie, brother Connor and sister Kayla.

Caleb’s last wish will help push Kristin as that visit will motivate her through this next phase.

In addition to the individual contributions Thursday’s Child makes, it also tries and be supportive of other programs related to assisting youth. Since 2003, as an example, Thursday’s Child has funded six evening meals per year for parents of seriously ill children who are patients at American Family Children’s Hospital., which is part of UW Hospitals.

Each meal serves between 50-to-60 people. “A meal at the end of a stressful day is appreciated by parents who want and need to stay close to their child’s bedside,” Ferguson said. To operate those meals, the annual contribution is $3,000.

For this year, Thursday’s Child geared up for its Santa Project which it has done over the years. “Young families with medical expenses, time away from home, time away from jobs, and experiencing financial difficulties are referred to us by the social workers at American Family Children’s Hospital,” Ferguson said, where they are presented with $50 Target gift cards given to the ill child and each sibling age 18 and under.

In 2022, 70 families were helped by this effort, while in 2023 there were 75 families.

The group operates through individual donation, as well as fundraisers like Meier’s ride, or the Santa Cause - an event held earlier this month in Platteville organized by Melissa and Jenni Martinez.

They had been listed with Amazon Smiles, which made donations with every purchase, however the online retailer shut down that program in February. They also have a direct online donation panel at their website at www.thursdayschildwisconsin. org.

With that fundraising, and the efforts of the members of the board, the group continues to help those youth as they help children like Ross Ducat. Ross has been battling cancer since he was five, and now a teen, he wished to meet YouTube star Katie Noël.

Plans were being made for Ross and his family to go meet Noël in Kentucky, but his health took a negative turn, and traveling was not going to happen.

Instead of simply making a call, and sending a photo or some memorabilia, Noël instead hopped a plane, on her own dime, and flew to Madison, meeting him at UW Hospital, and went with him on his appointments.

“I can only say that this girl was our Christmas miracle,” Ferguson gushed, noting Noël’s last name means Christmas in French.