Behind The Wish: Kristy-Lee Bosher

Meet Kristy-Lee Bosher, the long-time Wish Granting Coordinator at Cardinia-Casey Branch.

Kristy-Lee gave birth to her first child in 2024 and hopes he follows in her footsteps and is involved with Make-A-Wish when he's older.

Behind The Wish is our series of inspirational reads diving into the everyday superheroes involved in creating life-changing wishes.

From green hills to hospital wards

I grew up in Gippsland, in a little town called Korumburra (pictured), in a family of six: my parents and three siblings.

I was always a bit of an adventurer and was destined to move away.

Not because I didn’t like Korumburra. I think we eventually will move back to green surrounds from the city and a less chaotic life. I love going home now and seeing the green hills.

I did work experience in the newsroom of the Herald Sun. I got to write a few stories.

I think my first story was on bonbon crackers. I went and bought some from different stores and tested them before writing a story.

I wanted to be a journalist, I lived and breathed it. I wanted to tell people’s stories, and I also wanted to be an author.

While at the Herald Sun, we went to The Royal Children’s Hospital to do a story on this little boy.

And that changed my career aspirations. I just felt that pull to be in that hospital environment. I wanted to be a doctor.

So, I thought I would study nursing, and then switch over to a medical degree. But then I became a nurse and fell in love with nursing.

And I could see a path that I wanted to take and that was cancer nursing.

I remember a patient in a neurology ward who had brain cancer and I remember they passed away as we were giving them their last wash. I didn’t feel sad, I just felt internally grateful I was there for that last moment.

We had the family come in and they knew that those final moments were peaceful and restful.

I developed my love for cancer nursing and now 14 years later I am still in cancer nursing.

I love that nurses can spend so much time bedside and show that compassion, that empathy, and connect with people. It’s what I enjoy day in, day out.

Now I’m a cancer nurse educator, so I teach other nurses who are learning to specialize in all things cancer. It’s my world now.

Caring runner touches her heart

I met my husband-to-be, Dom, running in 2020, the year of COVID. I am part of a running group and he was down that night I was running. I remember thinking he’s good-looking.

But we didn’t see each other till the next year. I sadly lost a beautiful friend who is a nurse as well.

I posted a photo of her and I on Instagram and he commented on the post. He just said, "I’m really sorry sounds like you are going through a tough time, do you want to go for a run?"

Then we saw each other at a running session the next week and got talking. He was about to fly back to the UK, where he is from.

We organically found this friendship that transformed into now being husband and wife.

We were married in Australia by his dad who is a vicar and then we had a second wedding in the UK.

Dom and I are both not materialistic people. We have everything we need.

Dom jokes ‘but I really want a coffee machine or a fancy toaster’ but in reality both of us are very minimalistic and we both wanted to chose a charity for our wedding guests to donate to.

His niece has cystic fibrosis, so Dom chose a cystic fibrosis charity and I chose Make-A-Wish.

It was an option though for people to donate, it wasn’t mandatory. We didn’t need gifts, but if people felt compelled to give something, then they could give to these charities.

We raised thousands for Make-A-Wish. The generosity was phenomenal. I did a similar thing for my 30th as well.

The wedding was about showing our love but also what we wanted for our future, which is generosity and kindness.

It was a no-brainer for me to select Make-A-Wish for donations as I live and breathe Make-A-Wish.

Everyone in our circle who attended the wedding knows that most weekends, or at least once a week, I am doing something for Make-A-Wish. My friendship group and my family have been very involved over the years.

Our baby named Teddy was born August 16, 2024.

I worked right up to when he was 38 weeks and then I had to pause work and my studies. There was lots of emotion and feeling around that.

But now he’s here, it has changed my perspective. Work is very important to me and I’m also keen to go back and finish my thesis but he’s so beautiful to an extent that I have forgotten about work.

I feel so content and calm. I have always been so busy juggling all the balls in the air and now it feels like things are easier. Even though having a newborn is tiresome, it’s not the hardest or easiest thing I have done but it’s incredibly rewarding.

From high school to Make-A-Wish

Why I am still with Make-A-Wish has definitely changed over the years.

It all started when I was using mum’s dial-up computer and it was just after I got my results for Year 12. I got amazing results, I think it was 96 or something like that.

And despite working so hard for that result that year, I felt guilty that I had put all my focus on myself. I wanted to give back and I didn’t want to feel that guilt.

And I knew my career was probably going to be long if I was going to become a doctor and I really wanted to stay grounded.

I remember Googling charities in my local area and Make-A-Wish was the first one that popped up.

It was very organic. I really liked what I read. The interview to become a volunteer was so relaxed and I just thought it was something I wanted to do.

I guess looking back, 18 is quite young and I didn’t know myself and I think I have grown as a person as Make-A-Wish has grown.

The two things are intertwined. I think because Make-A-Wish came before my career, it kind of helped me with my career. But then my career has helped me with Make-A-Wish. Building that connection with others and showing empathy.

I remember someone did a study about empathy from a nursing perspective, and it was all about connection.

I feel like through studying nursing when I started Make-A-Wish I learnt about all the things you need to be a great volunteer.

And in nursing I have been able to show empathy and that’s helped me connect with families and my Make-A-Wish Branch.

The process of matching volunteers with wishes

I didn’t think I knew what I was getting into but I became Wish Granting Coordinator of the Cardinia-Casey Branch when I was 19.

Our Branch is a little bit older. When I joined, there were some volunteers who had retired and there I was, a 19-year-old coming in with her ideas.

We were starting with a new Wish Journey process across Make-A-Wish not long after I started and that was challenging as a young person, to be involved in rolling that out when I was still learning about Make-A-Wish and how to find my voice and be part of healthy conversations in the Branch.

I now say to others in the Branch, "If you ever have a tricky conversation coming up, then please let me know. I am happy to help navigate those conversations and make sure they stay positive."

The Wish Granting Coordinator role is the communication pathway between head office and the Branch.

When wishes come into head office and a child is eligible, then they will be allocated to the Branch in the child’s catchment zone.

And then it goes to the relevant Wish Granting Coordinator. I help decide who is going to be on that Wish Team.

I put a lot of thought into who I allocate to particular wishes. My career helps me in the sense that with a medical background, I can sense what is appropriate and who that person might connect best with.

For example, if it’s a non-verbal child, it might be best for an experienced volunteer to be involved.

There are always opportunities for new volunteers to be mentored or shadowed by volunteers who have been around for a while. There’s a lot of thought that goes on behind the scenes.

I think I have got better at that process over the years. We are all different people and we all communicate differently, so it’s important that we are pairing volunteers together who will be a great combination and enhance whatever wish they are going on.

I love it when a volunteer calls me a few months before a wish is being granted and they will suggest some Anticipation ideas and we will have that roundtable, that collaboration.

I would like to think I’m quite creative. Or if it’s about navigating how to unearth the wish for the child.

Often, it’s the case the child has trouble coming up with a wish.

I mean I don’t know what I would wish for if I got asked.

There’s empathy, you have to focus on what the child wants and not their condition or the reason they are eligible for a wish. You need to find what makes them smile, what makes them happy.

Seeing the Wish Effect is a huge motivation

The Wish Effect is why I am still here at Make-A-Wish all these years later.

As cliched as it sounds, the power of a wish is really magical. And I have seen a wish child be really reserved, withdrawn, and not interactive during that first home visit. We are complete strangers, after all, so that is all very normal.

And then as time has gone on and the wish has got closer and more conversations happen and the design team at head office are involved and words and themes emerge over weeks and months, then you present and reveal that wish, you can see how much the child has grown and how much the wish has made them come out of their shell.

That is the best thing in the whole entire world.

There’s a recent wish and we first met online. The child was non-verbal and he was 18 but intellectually much younger than that.

And his wish was for a train experience. It took three or four years for this wish to come to fruition because of COVID.

But also because of what it might look like for someone who sees and feels differently to others his age. He had this train experience on The Ghan. He was so excited to sleep, eat, and do all the things on a train.

I reached out to friends to see if they knew any train parks or potential good locations to do the wish presentation.

One of my friends reached out and said there’s a great train park and it was this old steam train in a park. So, we did it there, in open fresh air.

We had a train cake donated, in the same colours of the steam train there.

This wish child was in and out of the steam train, and hardly wanted to be off the train. We had his favourite food: chicken nuggets.

Then I sat down next to him with his wish itinerary knowing that how he might understand things is different to most kids. So we were pointing at pictures and things like that.

And then without realising it was happening, this wish child turned and gave me the biggest kiss on my cheek.

And the mum started crying. And I was very early in my pregnancy at that time and my emotions were wild, so I started crying.

Then the mum said, "That is the most emotion he has shown in his whole life. He doesn’t connect with people very easily."

I think that captures the Wish Effect. He didn’t have complete understanding but he knew this was special and this sparked the most joy you could possibly see in a wish child.

Sometimes it’s moments in a wish that make it so special.

That came at a time when I was newly-pregnant and questioning whether my priorities needed to change.

I give so much of my time to Make-A-Wish, going to our Branch meetings once a month, an hour from home. And sometimes it’s challenging to answer the phone when I’m at work.

But in a moment like that, you say to yourself, "Well I can’t give it up now." I said to myself, "If this is making one wish child feel like this, then I have to keep going, I can’t stop."

I thought I would be sad to not see that kind of thing again.

For me it’s all about what the wish child gets out of it, not what I get out of it. So that’s been a shift since I joined as an 18-year-old.

My friend Adam is a great example of the Wish Effect.

He had a wish at 18, it was to have a special birthday party.

And he’s now aged and has his own child with his partner, Grant and he talks to me and to our friendship group about his wish.

He hiked up Mt Everest to raise money for Make-A-Wish for giving him something that’s lasting and is something he will never forget.

He is now telling his son, Jett about his wish and how from a time when he was battling and in a dark mental space, he found positive change from the wish.

'All wishes are impactful'

It’s really hard to pick a favourite wish. Sometimes the simple wishes are the best wishes. And recently we granted a wish and it was captured in COVID times. It was a ZOOM home visit capture.

This little boy was still going through treatment and he had a bald head. And I just remember trying to start the conversation, trying to get to know him a little bit more and I asked him, "Do you know why we are here?" and he’s like, "Yes, you’re from Make-A-Wish." I asked him if he knew much about Make-A-Wish and why he was granted a wish.

And he so cheekily and confidently said, "Because I am so handsome."

And I just thought, oh my Lord, whatever this is, it's going to be beautiful.

He had a really clear vision of what he wanted and it was to throw snowballs at his mum and dad.

I just thought that was so innocent and so simple. And it wasn’t fancy, and it didn’t have bells and whistles, and it wasn’t going to be a wish that was shown on TV.

It wasn’t going to be this grand big wish. But in his eyes, it was the biggest most amazing thing he could imagine.

He really loved monster trucks, so somehow I had found this truck that was snow-based and when we went to have his wish presentation, we gave him his itinerary, the snow Monster truck, and we had a Cake Angels cake.

And his wish was recently granted and the photos his mum sent us were just pure joy. The pictures just showed exactly what Make-A-Wish is about and it was him in the snow making a snow angel, making a snowman. We gave him a box of goodies of things to decorate the snowman.

We set him a challenge to build the biggest and best snowman with his parents and brother. And that’s what he did.

It’s hard to choose one wish that is the most impactful as all wishes are impactful.

I think that sometimes when a wish child doesn’t know what they want and we create this wish with the input of the volunteers and the head office design team, that’s the impact: seeing the wish child react to something they didn’t know could happen.

Years ago, we had this wish child who loved Miley Cyrus. I remember this wish kid had a one-on-one with Miley.

But he said the best thing about that wish was that Miley Cyrus spat water onto him in the mosh pit. And she threw a toy pig at him. He was just glowing.

In the weeks leading up to his wish, he had this little Christmas bauble on his IV pole and it was a Miley Cyrus wrecking ball – just like her song – and so when he walked around the hospital he would think about his wish. That was so impactful for him to the point it had a flown-on effect to the wish family and all those involved in any capacity.

When he sadly passed away, his funeral was based around Miley Cyrus and the iconic photo of him and Miley meeting during the wish was on a poster.

And then, not long after, when she learned he had passed away, Miley Cyrus retweeted the photo and wrote the most beautiful message underneath. That just goes to show that even though she is worlds apart, it was a lasting impression on not just him, but Miley Cyrus.

His whole celebration of life was about the positivity of the wish.

Make-A-Wish 'part of my identity'

Sometimes when you’re granting a wish, the moments and days leading up are a little chaotic.

And then you go and grant the wish or you see another volunteer’s wish being granted and you walk away and you feel light. Whatever chaos there was leading up to that day becomes so irrelevant.

You realize life is moments and moments are special.

If we all just slowed down to enjoy moments with each other then the world would be a really happy place.

I think that’s what wishes remind me of.

When I walk away from a wish and call my husband, he doesn’t get a word in, because I feel like I’m just talking at him about the moments I have seen.

Not that they have got a cubby or a train, it’s about the wish child said this and the mum was showing this. It’s about the moments.

It’s lightness in the sense of happiness and in the sense of perspective.

I guess it’s what it is like for the wish child. Their world is full of chaos and then the wish brings lightness and that’s something they can hang onto and take with them. The wish is impactful because it’s going to change the way they interact with people.

When I think of Make-A-Wish and having done it for almost half my life now, it’s a part of me. It’s part of my identity. If I was to let Make-A-Wish go, there would be some grief. It would be letting a really big part of me go. And I think that’s why I can’t let go. It’s that I’m so passionate about continuing to see smiles on wish children’s faces.

I’m passionate about sharing with other volunteers how to be Make-A-Wish volunteers and helping them grow into their roles.

But now I have got my own child, Teddy, I want him to be generous, and I want him to be kind. If I can show him that I can be part of Make-A-Wish and continue to be a part of it, it is not time that is wasted.

I want Teddy to grow up to be part of Make-A-Wish or at least know that I was part of Make-A-Wish and that we have a bigger purpose than just ourselves. That generosity and kindness is incredibly important in life.

He’s already been to a wish and met a family at a hotel. His first wish at seven weeks old!

When I was pregnant, he came along to Branch meetings and presentations. So, he may not have a choice, it may be in his DNA!

Make-A-Wish has helped me come out of my shell.

I have been able to host events and play the air guitar at one event – I had never played it before but it helped me remember my inner child! I am really proud to be part of Make-A-Wish.

I always say that in my next career, I will write living eulogies because I love hearing people’s stories. If someone was to stand up and give my eulogy and say one of the things I have achieved is Make-A-Wish, I would think that’s pretty amazing.

Strong ties to Cardinia-Casey Branch

I go to Pakenham for the Cardinia-Casey Branch meetings.

I have been told that there are Branches closer to my home in the inner south. But Cardinia-Casey Branch is where I started and they are a family to me. They have seen me grow up and they have seen me climb mountains and come back, they patiently waited until I met my husband and patiently waited till I was pregnant. It would be like breaking up with a family to change Branches.

I chose Cardinia-Casey Branch because it was the connection to my local community back home.

Gippsland was the catchment for the Branch. And I’m passionate about being connected to my grassroots.

The Branch is like family to me. Just last week, they had a delayed baby shower for me at one of the volunteer’s houses.

It said ‘Welcome to the World of Make-A-Wish Teddy’. How can you give that up?

I couldn’t imagine going to another Branch.

It’s not an effort to drive an hour once a month or pick up the phone to another volunteer, because I love what I do.

I say this to other volunteers: it’s not a job and shouldn’t eat into your own time.

There’s got to be a reason beyond ourselves why we stay. I can’t imagine not doing Make-A-Wish. Even now my hands are tied, doing my Masters, going back to work, travelling to Gippsland to see family or the other side of world to see Dom’s family, I’m still happy to be involved. In March, I was Zooming into a meeting from Scotland.

The beauty of Make-A-Wish is you can be involved in different ways. Fundraising or wish granting, or contributions at the meetings.

Sean Bell is an inspiration. He ran around Australia.

I went on a run with him well before he was publicly known. He was telling me about his plan to run around Australia for Make-A-Wish.

We ran around Jells Park and talked about his 'why' and my 'why'. We got him on Zoom for our Branch meetings and we helped him fundraise.

Make-A-Wish is really good at keeping people connected.

Our Branch is very proud of the involvement of the local community. That’s why I haven’t steered away from Cardinia-Casey.

Make-A-Wish is just a really big part of my life. I don’t regret at 18, logging on to mum’s dial-up internet and choosing Make-A-Wish.

It gives me so much. I can’t think of a day where I won’t be doing something for Make-A-Wish.

I always feel like Make-A-Wish has given me more. I have got some stats of how many wishes I have granted and I was actually amazed at the numbers. I have made a difference, but more importantly, those wish children have made a bigger difference to me.

I’ll be eternally grateful for those moments wish children have shared with me.

Kristy-Lee has been a proud volunteer since 2010