Making Joshua's Wish Come True

Early in 2007, KATU's telethon for the Make-A-Wish Foundation helped raise $33,000 and more than 400,000 frequent flier miles to help fulfill the wishes of kids like 6-year-old Joshua Brenneman, who wanted nothing more than to be a pirate.

Joshua has a form of cancer called Ewing's Sarcoma and is among the thousands of children each year who have wishes granted by the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Steven Black, a local man who reenacts pirate scenes, heard about Joshua's wish on the radio."One of the names that was on the list was "and here's young Josh, who wants a pirate fantasy adventure," at which point my wife looked at me, slapped me across the arm and said "you call them right now."

So when the Lady Washington pulled into Portland for the Rose Festival last week, Joshua was there, sailing under his new pirate name 'Red Dog' Brenneman. His family went along as well.

"It's for the whole family and Joshua has four big sisters and they also struggle and go through the journey along with you and it was just wonderful to have the creative genius of Make-A-Wish and the crew of the Lady Washington and the pirates - everyone just totally got on board and made it something very, very special for the whole family," said Joshua's father, Don Brenneman.

Joshua said it was his wish come true. "I was really interested in doing it and I liked the pirates a lot," he said.