Ryerson’s Students for Wishes reaches $10,000 goal to grant a wish

By Melissa Bennardo

Ryerson’s Students for Wishes have reached their $10,000 goal and can now grant a wish to a child through Make-A-Wish Canada.

The group held their annual Hairaiser event at Ryerson’s Student Learning Centre Thursday. Before the Hairaiser event, Ryerson’s Students for Wishes had raised a total of $7,760 over the school year. From the Hairaiser alone, $4,480 dollars was raised which is six times the amount raised from last year’s event. Sherif Taher, vice president of Ryerson’s Students for Wishes, said he is proud to know that Make-A-Wish Canada can now grant a wish on their behalf.

“We’re going to be there for support and to see the result of our hard work,” he said.

The group is a volunteer branch of Make-A-Wish Canada and raises money for children with life threatening illnesses. This is the third year they have hosted the Hairaiser event. The Ryerson community came together to either donate eight inches of their hair, which is used to make wigs for chemotherapy patients, or dyed their hair blue which is the primary colour of Make-A-Wish.

: Some of Ryerson’s Students for Wishes executive team and volunteers after the Hairaiser (Photo: Melissa Bennardo).

: Musa Raveendran and Brittney Jaikaran after the Hairaiser (Photo: Melissa Bennardo).

: Chemistry professor Dr. Bryan Koivisto after dyeing his hair blue (Photo: Melissa Bennardo).

: Jessie Wong after donating her hair at the Hairaiser (Photo: Melissa Bennardo).

: Megan Smith, Alicia Chung, and Christina Badoulas, Students for Wishes volunteers (Photo: Melissa Bennardo).

: Richard Marshall and Moe Omar, Students for Wishes Volunteers (Photo: Melissa Bennardo).

Taher’s brother and volunteer for the group, Amr Taher said that finding out that they can grant a wish has been very rewarding.

“When you work hard for something, you eventually get what you want and what we want is to help people,” he said.

The group also collaborated with the Biomedical Science Course Union which helped bring in more pledges for the event.

Chemistry professor, Dr. Bryan Koivisto heard about the event through the Biomedical Course Union. He said he even bleached his hair beforehand to get the best results when dyeing his hair blue. He pledged to dye his hair for $200 and ended up raising $375.

“At Ryerson we are all about community. I think in any way we can engage in the community at different levels is really important,” Koivisto said.

Bianca Stagliano, volunteer and logistics coordinator of Students for Wishes, said she was surprised to see the turnout.

“I didn’t expect this many people to come at first so it’s really great.” Stagliano said.

She said that their primary goal was to be able to grant a wish but also bring increased awareness of the group to the Ryerson Community.

“We hope Ryerson [now] knows more about Students for Wishes,” she said.

“We started off as such a small group and as you can see, we’ve expanded.”