A 4-year-old Manitowoc boy who attends kindergarten at Riverview School will have his wish come true at Disney World this weekend.
Henry Tyeptanar, the son of Mike and Emily Tyeptanar, loves the movie Finding Nemo and chose meeting Crush as his wish from the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
As we told you earlier this year, Henry was born with a rare, severe, and fatal illness called X-Linked Myotubular Myopathy which causes weak muscles and impacts his mobility and breathing.
Ahead of the family’s all-expenses paid trip to Florida today, Henry received a sendoff party late yesterday afternoon at Pizza Garden.
Seehafer News spoke with his mom and she was obviously excited for her son.
“It’s crazy. We have been planning for so long and the day is finally here,” Emily said. “We are excited to see his reaction to everything. The thing we are going to do is seeing Crush right away.”
Emily’s husband says they’re grateful for the support from Make-A-Wish and the community for making this a reality.
Mike explained that Henry, who is confined to a wheelchair, is able to grasp the moment too.
“We have been trying to show him videos and everything so he can get in his mind what he can expect,” Henry’s dad told us. “Everyday…we tell him ‘Two more sleeps, one more sleep till Disney,’ and every day he has been smiling more and more.”
Several representatives of Make-A-Wish Foundation Wisconsin were in attendance.
Mike Kuenzi from Grafton told us thousands of applications come in to their organization and hundreds are accepted throughout the year.
“They come from donations from individuals and companies,” he explained. “It’s amazing to see the outpouring when it happens to be kids, and granting wishes. People are so generous and so giving and caring. It’s just really beautiful to see the humanity of a lot of the businesses that we get to work with.”
The Tyeptanars fly out of Green Bay and will have 3 days at Disney, a day or two at Universal Studios, and one day at Sea World.
Emily sums it up by saying, “It’s going to be busy, but it’s going to be fun.”
