By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

Red Deer teen’s galactic dream comes true thanks to Make-A-Wish

Oct 21, 2018 | 2:59 PM

Red Deer’s biggest Star Wars fan, hands down, had his dream come true this weekend, and George Lucas couldn’t have written a better script for how it played out.

Last July, brave citizens rappelled down the Stantec Building in downtown Red Deer to raise tens of thousands of dollars for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. One of those fine folks was “Papa” Joe Hittel, who raised $16,000 on his own.

About $10,000 of that made Saturday’s event at the Scott Block Theatre, at which 16-year-old Anakin Suerink’s wish was granted, possible.

“May the force be with you all,” Suerink said when asked if he had a message for the Make-A-Wish team.

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Suerink, a student in Lindsay Thurber’s Foundations program, was born 1 lb., 3 oz, has had 16 surgeries and has been diagnosed with a litany of ailments, including autism, fibromyalgia, scoliosis and epilepsy. He also has two brain tumours, a shunt in his head, and he’s lived far past what doctors originally predicted.

Suerink, who was named by his father, not only got to meet his favourite characters from a galaxy far, far away, but Darth Vader himself presented the deserving young man with a trip to Disneyworld, for which he leaves next week.

“I don’t know if there are words to describe this. This is earth-shattering for him. He is so excited right now. This is a complete 100 per cent dream come true,” said Elizabeth Eckert, Anakin’s mother.

“If more people would understand what this means, maybe more would say let’s sponsor, let’s raise money or do whatever we can. If everybody did that, you know how much money there’d be and how many kids could go to where they want to, or have people come to them? You could hand me ten million dollars and it wouldn’t touch what this is doing for him right now.”

Hittel, who will be 84 in February, said he’s not committing just yet to doing the Rope for Hope fundraiser again, but he’s happy to have done it this year.

“This just about brought tears to my eyes,” he said. “I’m glad I could make that wish and hopefully if I do it again, I’ll see if I can send two kids through the Make-A-Wish program. One day at a time.”

According to Anakin’s mom, her son hopes to attend Red Deer College and enroll in the TVP program, or work with dogs at some point. Anakin will turn 17 on Nov. 4.

“He’s just so determined and I know he’ll reach those because that’s Anakin,” she said. “Thank you to everybody’s who’s done this for him.”

Star Wars characters, including Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine and Darth Nihilus, were portrayed by Alberta members of the 501st Legion, a volunteer organization which stretches worldwide and regularly performs at charity and community events.