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PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) – On Friday, Panama City residents played pickleball while they made children’s wishes come true. Midnight Sun Pickleball Panama City held the Pickling for Wishes Pickleball Tournament at Papa Joe’s Bayside with all proceeds benefiting Make-A-Wish Central and Northern Florida.
“Getting to play their favorite sport and coming together as a community while supporting such a great cause at the same time seemed like a no-brainer to me,” said Pickling for Wishes Tournament Pickleball Director, Jill Lutz.
Make-A-Wish creates life-changing wishes for children with critical illnesses. NewsChannel 7 is told all players’ registration fees for the tournament will be donated directly towards granting wishes to kids living in the Northwest region of Florida.
“Families and children allow me to come into their lives and just sprinkling a little bit of magic into their lives. I see it as lifting the curtains, letting the sun in, and having children experience joy and hope and plan for a future,” said the Director of Development for Make-A-Wish Northwest Florida, Kathleen Hampton.
Midnight Sun Pickleball raised over $7,000 to help children with this tournament. Additional donations were also made by generous donors.
This money will benefit Make-A-Wish families like Kristen Leynes’ family, whose daughter was hospitalized for months when she was 4 years old. She says Make-A-Wish helps make children’s wishes a reality.
“I remember going to Disney for the first time with her after her treatment, and it was so special because it was something we didn’t know that we would get to do again. When she was hospitalized, that’s what she was asking her doctors when she was going to get to go to Disney again, and that was the most special thing that I think we could have done with our daughter, it was what she wanted to do, and Make-A-Wish made that happen for us,” said Leynes.
Make-A-Wish’s Director of Development says they will keep going to other major cities in Northwest Florida, such as Destin and Pensacola, to keep making children’s wishes come true by playing pickleball.
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