Wishes do come true: A Colorado boy gets his dream funded after heart transplant

PUEBLO COUNTY, Colo. (KKTV) - A Colorado community of students is making a difference in the lives of four Colorado kids diagnosed with a critical illness.

Pueblo County High School partnered with Make-A-Wish. Wednesday, they announced the amount raised by students and staff. Six-year-old Cash was one of these kids. His very special wish will now be coming true this spring.

“We love him a lot,” Gianna Manzanares, a Senior at Pueblo County High, said. “We put a lot of work into this because all we want is the best for them.

Cash Blanchfield was born with a disease in the middle and on both sides of his heart.

After living in Children’s Hospital in Denver for eight months, the only option for Cash to survive was a heart transplant. He waited for a heart for 51 days. But after a nine-hour surgery, Cash is the energetic and joyful kid you see today.

“It has been a little over a year now without being admitted to the hospital,” Amanda Blanchfield, Mother of Cash, said. “So that is really cool to celebrate that, and I hope we can stay out of the hospital.”

“He is just full of energy,” Tina Stroman, Make-A-Wish Development Coordinator, said. “When I arrived at the school this morning, he just ran right through the door. He was so excited.”

Now, a six-year-old boy with a love of Mickey Mouse and his exciting clubhouse, Cash’s wish for Make-A-Wish was to have a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse brought straight to his backyard.

“Oh, he loves the Mouse,” Blanchfield said. “To him, that is where Toodles lives, and he likes that there are all the gears and handy helpers, and he likes all the details on the things.”

And come this spring, that Mickey Mouse Clubhouse will be in his backyard!

Pueblo County High students and staff raised $29,000 for Make-A-Wish Colorado. Cash and the three other kids will get their wishes granted with that money.

One student at Pueblo County High says the fundraiser was a way to support these families.

“It is really the little things that count,” Manzanares said. “All of us coming together as one large student body and doing the little things; they just add up.”

According to Make-A-Wish Foundation, every 20 minutes, a child is diagnosed with a critical illness.

But every day, 15 wishes will be granted by donors.

If you wish to donate, click here.

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