Mykala Fowler
Everyone has a wish, right? Maybe you’d like to travel the world, win the lottery, or marry Brad Pitt. We all have wishes, but a student at Barron Collier High School would rather play fairy godmother and be the one granting a wish, not just any wish, but a wish for a local student in need.
Barron Collier junior Mykala Fowler had an idea. She wanted to grant a local student a wish through the Make-A-Wish Foundation. She decided to create BCH t-shirts and sell them, in hopes that they’d raise $5,000 to grant a local student’s wish and raise awareness for the organization.
But her mission is also a personal one. When she was in fifth grade, Fowler was diagnosed with melanoma.
“Going through the disease, I was lucky enough not to have the severity that some kids have to deal with, and I think it’s something to be able to take the stress for even a day off of the student or someone my age or younger.”
“As parents, we’ve always tried to instill in our kids that we are extremely blessed and we need to give back to society as a whole,” says Mykala’s father, Bill. “When you see your kid take the initiative as opposed to us, it makes me very, very proud. We have four daughters and Mykala is the baby. I’m just so proud of her efforts.”
With the help of her family and a teacher, Fowler found a sponsor, a local law firm, to underwrite the cost of 330 shirts, enough to reach her goal. She began to sell them for $20 at school with proceeds going toward the wish.
When word got out, other organizations wanted to get involved. It quickly became a school-wide cause, not just a girl but an entire high school coming together to grant a wish for a local student.
The National Honor Society began helping with t-shirt sales during lunch every day, with some sizes running out more quickly than they anticipated. The Key Club started their own effort, selling bracelets for $2 to go toward the cause.
“It’s incredible,” says Development Coordinator for Make-A-Wish Southwest Florida, Taylor Marini. “To see students coming together within a school to raise money to help other kids in the community is powerful.”
Marini says local schools have been involved in Make-A-Wish before but never to this extent.
“There are a lot of high school students who might be within the schools who are having wishes granted. It’s amazing that these students are raising money to help their peers receive wishes.”
She says the money will go straight toward a local student so BCH will be able to follow the story of whoever’s wish is granted and continue to stay involved in the process.
In their first week alone, the school raised $1,000, a number Fowler hopes will increase. They have all the shirts necessary to meet the goal, now they just need to sell them. Fowler says if they’re successful she thinks BCH could continue granting more wishes in the future.
Until then, Fowler is thinking about their first wish and is anxious to see the end result.
“Seeing a kid with their wish granted because of something our school was able to start, I think it would be incredible. It’s great that we were all able to come together and make this happen for someone, it’s empowering.”