Voorhees nonprofit helping many wishes come true puts forth its own wish

They were hoping to grant their daughter's dying wish.

John and Carolynn Vogel planned to take 5-year-old Gabby and her sisters on a Disney World vacation they'd always remember.

Gabby died of brain cancer before they made it, and the trip - though important to the family's healing - seemed financially impossible with all the medical bills.

Until heroes came to the rescue.

A Vogel relative posted the Phoenixville family's story on the website of the Wish Upon a Hero Foundation, a kind of national clearinghouse for wishes and wish-granters.

Contributions poured in from across the country. A Vineland woman donated her time-share in Orlando, and Disney World offered about $1,300 worth of VIP treatment. In January, the Vogels plan to take the trip Gabby had wanted.

"She will be with us," John Vogel said. "We carry her in our hearts."

The people-helping-people effort is exactly what Dave Girgenti hoped for when he founded the Wish Upon a Hero Foundation in 2007. More than 84,000 wishes have been answered, everything from providing a wheelchair ramp to paying $10,000 in chemotherapy costs.

Today, Girgenti, 40, of Cherry Hill, has his own wish for the Voorhees nonprofit.

The "wish master," as he's been called, wants the foundation to win the top prize at the first-ever American Giving Awards, which will grant $2 million to five charitable organizations during a program to air on NBC at 8 p.m. Dec. 10.

Votes for the five will be recorded from Dec. 1 to 8 on Facebook [votewish.com]. The organization with the most votes will receive $1 million; the runner-up, $500,000, and a third charity, $250,000. The remaining two will each be given $125,000.

Another of the charities has a New Jersey connection: Move for Hunger Inc. is a Neptune organization that works with moving companies across the country to pick up unopened, nonperishable food from people who are moving, and then delivers it to local food banks.

The three others are Let's Get Ready Inc. of New York, which provides SAT preparation and college admission counseling for low-income high school students; To Write Love on Her Arms of Cocoa, Fla., which helps people struggling with depression and addiction; and Matthew Shepard Foundation of Casper, Wyo., created in memory of a hate-crime victim to encourage respect for human dignity.

"I'll be happy no matter what, but if we win $1 million, it will be magical," Girgenti said. "We grant wishes in every state and $1 million will allow us to grant a lot of wishes - and much larger wishes."

Girgenti sees his foundation as the vanguard of a new philanthropic revolution, making use of online technology and social media to connect wishers with wish-granters.

The charity serves a range of residents, from children to seniors, with a variety of needs. People post their wishes and are answered by others through the website.

The foundation itself has researched and funded 2,500 wishes so far, but it can't check the tens of thousands of others and leaves that to the wish-granters who have made many dreams come true.

The hero website does alert the organization when multiple requests are made from a single computer, suggesting possible fraud.

Now Girgenti wants to step beyond the foundation's "wish ambassadors" who help answer individual needs to a "hero response team" that could travel across the country, helping entire communities, especially after natural disasters.

"We will be in place for larger things," Girgenti said. "We have and will work with other organizations - the Red Cross, charities, and churches."

He eventually would like to see community hero chapters form so local needs could be shared more easily online - and met by wish-granters across the country.

"This is a movement that can bring a lot of change," he said. "We have probably granted $300,000 in wishes over the past year. Next year, we'll probably grant $600,000 in wishes."

One of the first wishes came from a Marine staff sergeant in Vineland, who wrote to the website asking for help getting Lasik surgery and heard back in 2007 from an eye surgeon who offered to perform the surgery for free.

In 2008, an 8-year-old Sewell girl with Down syndrome and a heart ailment received hard-to-find tickets to a Hannah Montana concert in Atlantic City, through a wish-granter who visited the hero website.

And in 2009, a 90-year-old Maryland man got his wish to return to Pearl Harbor, where he was serving in 1941, when the Japanese attacked.

"People across the country said, 'This man is a hero and deserves to go back,' " Girgenti said. "People began sending in money. He got a free flight, hotel room, and special tour of the USS Arizona."

The Wish Upon a Hero Foundation was conceived by Girgenti after the 9/11 attacks on New York City. "I'm very pro-American; I wanted to help," he said. "But I was the creative director at an advertising agency in Cherry Hill. I didn't even know CPR. What could I do to help people who have lost everything?"

The idea for the foundation and a website began forming in his mind as a way of connecting people in need. It became more focused as Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005 and the Internet and social media evolved.

"In 2007, I slowly started building the website," Girgenti said. "What's its name? What's its logo? What's its function? . . . I knew this thing just had to happen."

He left his advertising job in 2009 as the website grew and its mission began attracting national media attention.

"We sent a woman who was going blind to the Grand Canyon before her eyesight was gone," Girgenti said. "We sent an 8-year-old boy whose father was killed in Iraq to NASA's space camp.

"Everybody has a wish, and everybody can be a hero," he said.

One wish that stands out was Gabby Vogel's desire to go to Disney World.

"I saw the Wish Upon a Hero web page and wanted to help," said Monica Negron, 37, the Vineland resident who donated the Orlando time-share. "It broke my heart that [Gabby's] sisters couldn't go and have that magical experience.

"The loss they had to face was overwhelming," she said. "I wanted them to have an ounce of happiness."

For the Vogels, the vacation will be healing. "I wish I was never in this situation," John Vogel said. "I wish Gabby was here.

"It's people like Dave [Girgenti] that re-instills in you the belief that humans are good at heart deep down," he said.

More information at www. wishuponaherofoundation.org.