3 Wishes for Her :: Our October Nonprofit of the Month
Memphis surpassed Salt Lake City this year to rank as the most generous metropolitan area in the United States, giving almost $6 of every $100 earned to philanthropy. With this in mind, the Memphis Moms Blog wants to feature a local Nonprofit every month. There are so many amazing organizations in our city dedicated to looking out for the well being of all Memphians, and we want to feature them. If you know of a Nonprofit we should feature, Let us know by nominating them here!
Their Mission:
3 Wishes For Her is a non-profit organization working with families of critically/chronically ill children. 3W is dedicated to educating women on how to care for themselves during and after a child’s treatment by focusing on their spiritual, emotional, and physical needs.
Denise Beyer’s Story:
In 2012, I was battling extreme anxiety. My family had been thrust into the world of childhood cancer. I was angry, I was grieving, and I was lost. Sometime that year is when I first met her. Everything about her screamed “typical church lady.” It took me a long time to realize there was nothing typical or churchy about her.
We met through mutual friends who had invited me to a bible study/support group. I didn’t know it then but she had been invited too, except she had been invited to lead it. Sylvia was in mourning, grieving her late husband’s passing. She didn’t feel equipped to help anyone else, and I think if she was being honest with you (which she always is), she didn’t want to focus on helping anyone else through their problems when she was drowning in her own.
Nevertheless, she showed up. She kept showing up. Around Christmas, she surprised the group with some donations of jewelry and make up. It was nothing expensive or extravagant but it brought a bright spot of joy to some hurting ladies.
Sylvia left that night with the realization that she had a new purpose and life had a new meaning. With her daughters, Sylvia started 3 Wishes for Her (3W).
The mission of 3W is to help mothers and caregivers of children with life-altering diseases. I think that it truly could be summed up even more. The mission of 3W is to help people. Sylvia wished to help women by providing support in the following areas: Spiritual, Emotional, and Physical. Those were the three greatest needs that she witnessed and from that her non-profit was born.
Since its creation, 3W has grown and evolved. It has reached numerous women and families and has always been focused on helping to meet those three needs.
The thing is, no group, no support group, no Bible study, no charity organization, can fix the situations these families face. No group can make a child come back to life, or heal a child from cancer, lupus, sickle cell, or any other disease. But Sylvia never promises to fix it. She always just states, “I’ll walk with you.” And she does, and that is what she has led the sisterhood formed by 3W to do for each other. We walk with one another on whatever hard journey of life we are in.
I have been picked up by my sisters. I have been prayed over and I have prayed for them. I have been cried on. We have held each other up as we sobbed over a casket that is far too tiny. I can’t take away the pain and grief of my friend losing her daughter. I can’t erase the survivor’s guilt from another. I can’t stop a disease reoccurrence. I can’t stop hospital inpatient stays, needle pokes, trauma, grief…no one can. We can simply turn to our sister, extend our hand, and walk with her.
That is what we do at 3 Wishes for Her.
Check them out on Facebook.
