Phony Charities

By Jeff McShan / 11 News

HOUSTON—
Nicole McGuire and Holly Andrew met for the first time Thursday, but they share a common story.

Both have a special needs child.

McGuire’s son, Tanner, is allergic to food and must be fed through a tube.

Andrew’s daughter, Gabriella, was born dangerously premature.

“She ended up being diagnosed with cerebral palsy,” Andrew said.

In separate communities, both women came across a charity called the Texas Wishing Well Foundation in a Wal-Mart parking lot.

The charity was raising money to send a special needs child on a dream trip.

Tanner McGuire and Gabriella Andrew
Both women donated money and then shared their own situations with the charity..

“And they got all excited and said, ‘please, we would love to do a fundraiser for (Gabriella),’” Andrew said.

Gabriella had always wanted to go back to New York and go ice skating again. She experienced it with a walker a few years ago.

Tanner’s dream was to meet the famous chef Bobby Flay. He’s in New York, too.

Both women said they filled out a form with their contact information and joined the Texas Wishing Well Foundation at various Wal-Mart stores to raise money for their children’s trip.

But now, the charitable organization has disappeared.

It’s Web site has been shut down, and its numbers are either disconnected or no one is picking up.

Andrew just can’t break the news to her daughter.

“Just this morning she asked me, ‘It’s only two more weeks until we go to New York.’ I didn’t have the heart to tell her she’s not going,” Andrew said.

11 News was unable to contact anyone associated with the charity either, but going back through our archives, we found a story we did on them back in 2003.

That year, the Texas Wishing Well Foundation took 13-year-old cancer patient Stephen Rael on a shopping spree at Toys-R-Us.

A cab driver was paid to bring all the gifts home, but he stole them.

“I am so sorry that I’m crying, but to have somebody just do that is horrible, because we put so much heart into it,” Texas Wishing Well’s Frank Willis said through tears back in 2003.

Willis is one of three people associated with the foundation that McGuire and Andrew said they were dealing with. Now he’s nowhere to be found.

Like Andrew, McGuire said she doesn’t have the heart to tell her son.

“No, I can’t. I won’t tell him. I am still hoping somehow, some way it happens for him, so that I don’t have to tell him there are such nasty people out there that hurt children like this,” McGuire said