P.E.I. mom still thankful for Make-a-Wish gift a decade after her daughter died of cancer
Sarah’s Place has been used by many children over the years, says Anne Van Donkersgoed
"I'm going so high," yells one girl to another across the air between their swings.
"Let's see who can go the highest," the other calls back.
The swing set they're playing on is part of Sarah's Place. These sisters never met the bubbly, blonde three-year-old the playground was named after — but they know it was Sarah's, and they know she was loved.
"When she was asked what she wanted, she said that she wanted this, she used to say 'a park at mine house.'" said Sarah's mother, Anne Van Donkersgoed, in an interview this week with CBC's Island Morning. "She didn't say 'my,' she said 'mine.' So I always call it her park at mine house."
The play set was built 10 years ago as part of Sarah's request through the Children's Wish Foundation, now called the Make-a-Wish Foundation.
Sarah had cancer and her health was declining. She died about six months after the play set was built in the backyard. But she and her older sisters made the most of it while they could.
"Everybody that came to the house last summer, it would be like, 'Come push, come push.' And she'd be dragging them outside to push," Van Donkersgoed said of Sarah in a 2015 interview with CBC News.
"And as she got sicker in the fall, she would take a chair and sit a chair next to the swings and she'd say 'push Emma, push Gracie,' and she would watch."
Ten years later, the results of Sarah's wish are still bringing joy to the children who continue to make use of the playground.
"It wasn't just for her, because it's been here for 10 years and so many kids have played in it," Van Donkersgoed said this week.
"I didn't realize in the beginning that that would be the legacy."
The impact of Sarah's wish on our lives in the moment and since then has been so great.— Anne Van Donkersgoed
In 2015, just a few months after Sarah died, Van Donkersgoed decided to hold a party as a way of giving back to Make-a-Wish and the community that had done so much for her family.
"I don't know how to convey how much that meant to our family. I don't know how to say, it was so big and they did it so quickly, and so kindly," she told CBC at the time.
There were pink flowers, pink lemonade and pink ice cream. In the end, the party raised $3,000, and many children got a chance to play at Sarah's Place.
Looking back at that time now, Van Donkersgoed is amazed at her strength, especially considering it was so soon after Sarah's death.
But she also gained strength from the experience.
"A couple of years after Sarah died, we were helping out a family that had three young children and their dad was having his own battle with cancer," she said.
"And sometimes I'd be sitting there watching them laugh and play outside. And I'm thinking, this is only because of Sarah that we have that."
Van Donkersgoed's two eldest daughters are now teenagers. They play sports and ride horses, and don't remember a lot about Sarah.
But they know how important she is to their family.
Van Donkersgoed and her daughter Emma will be taking part in a charity golf tournament next month to raise money for Make-a-Wish P.E.I. She also has plans to release a book in the fall about Sarah's life.
"The impact of Sarah's wish on our lives in the moment and since then has been so great," she said. "I want to honour the organization by telling our story.
"But also by telling our story, hopefully prompting people to give so that other kids can have a wish."
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With files from Sarah Keaveny Vos