MARINE CORPS BASE HAWAII -- Children from the Make-A-Wish Foundation sat front-row and were mesmerized by pilots flying during Friday’s dress rehearsal of the “Blues on the Bay” air show.
More than half a dozen families from the national organization’s Hawaii chapter came to see the famous U.S. Navy Blue Angels and other aviation performances. Air show announcer Danny Clisham was in the tent next door as children watched the aerial feats.
“To be this close to the action is great,” said Leilani Roehrig, program services director, Make-A-Wish Foundation of Hawaii. “We get to tour the area, and it really doesn’t get any better than this. It’s a chance for the families to meet up again too.”
Roehrig said Friday’s visit was the first time some families had seen each other since their children went through medical treatment for their life-threatening illnesses. Families enjoyed the carnival rides and ground displays in between watching a sneak peek of the air show, opened to the public on Saturday and Sunday.
Punualii Kahanu and his brother Pulikiaua got to take home scale models of the Blue Angel’s F/A-18 Hornets. The two enjoyed making jet sounds as they pretended their model planes could fly in the air, but kept their ears covered when the Navy demonstration team flew above them. The brothers, who both have duchenne muscular dystrophy, wore their green camouflage shirts to the air show.
Six-year-old Maka Almarza said he loved seeing all of the planes fly fast, and he was scared at seeing the fire and rescue demonstration with CH-53 Sea Stallions.
“I could feel the heat,” said Almarza, whose brain cancer is in remission. “I think it would be fun to be a pilot, but I would be scared at the fire.”
Almarza, who wants to be a baseball pitcher when he grows up, carried his tiny ball with him during the air show. The six-year-old toured several of the static plane displays and received a gold plane-shaped pin for visiting.
“This program is awesome,” said Marius Almarza, Maka’s father. “When my son was diagnosed with cancer, you go through one thing after another. Events like these take the family away from everything for a while. You can just be together, and not worry about anything because the foundation does it all for you. Make-A-Wish has done so much for us.”
Nathan Chan and his brother Justin took a trip on several of the carnival rides for children. Nathan, who has hypoplastic left heart syndrome, kept his own pace jumping through the show’s bouncy houses and its carousel. They took a ride on the Kids Kopter carousel before rejoining the rest of the families to meet aerobatic helicopter pilot Chuck Aaron.
The program services director said she loves to see the families again as their children grow up. She said she is always thrilled to see a child’s health improve after going through medical difficulties.
“Sometimes as adults we get too caught up in our jobs and stress,” Roehrig said. “We begin to think we just can’t take any more problems. The children here go through so much more than we do, and they still manage to do it all with a smile.”