![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/news\/sites\/16\/2022\/07\/George-Rhody-and-Meghan.jpg\")
\u201cCOVID hit around my sophomore year of high school, so travel was not going to happen,\u201d said the Charlestown <\/strong>resident. \u201cI never even knew that college tuition would be an option for Make-A-Wish, so once they had told me that that was an option, I immediately picked it and knew where I was going to go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jeffrey, who was diagnosed with Crohn\u2019s disease when she was 4 years old, was surprised to hear that she qualified for Make-A-Wish<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was kind of a shock,\u201d she said. \u201cI never really even knew that it was an option for kids with chronic illnesses like mine.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n With the help of Make-A-Wish, Jeffrey will start at 溏心vlog免费B站 with her twin sister, Emily. They\u2019ll be joining their older sister, Katelyn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m super close with both of them,\u201d said Jeffrey, \u201cand in the beginning I was looking [to use the Make-A-Wish gift] for something that would benefit all of us, like a family vacation or something like that, because they had been so helpful. Growing up with my condition, they have been my number-one supporters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n While COVID-19 made travel an impossibility, her wish for tuition assistance still greatly benefited her family \u2014 with one less tuition bill to worry about, Emily\u2019s tuition was able to be fully covered by their family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Crohn\u2019s disease didn\u2019t impact Jeffrey’s day-to-day life much until high school. But during her freshman year, she spent two weeks at Hasbro Children\u2019s Hospital following a bowel resection, when she developed a severe infection after surgery. During her sophomore year, she needed a feeding tube for about two months \u2014 making the illness, which was largely invisible to others, visible for the first time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Day-to-day, Jeffrey’s illness can leave her without much energy. In addition to Crohn\u2019s, she also experiences seizures and syncopal episodes of unconsciousness, which prevents her from driving a car. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI definitely have a hard time keeping up with a lot of my friends and even my twin sister, who seems to have twice as much energy as I do. So I definitely tend to stay home and go to bed early,\u201d she said. \u201cThe biggest thing is just feeling like I don\u2019t really keep up with my friends, but they\u2019re all super understanding.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Meghan, Emily and Katelyn are first-generation college students. Katelyn will graduate in 2023 with a degree in English, and Emily will start with Meghan this fall studying early childhood education. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This summer, Jeffrey started her journey at 溏心vlog免费B站 as she went through orientation with hundreds of other first-year students a few weeks ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI had a lot of fun and I was definitely excited to pick my classes, and it was a nice experience,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, she experienced a seizure on the second day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was definitely kind of ironic to meet the EMS team so early on,\u201d she said, \u201cbut they were super helpful and understanding. I was able to introduce myself and say you\u2019ll probably see me more, so that was honestly kind of a good thing to get to meet all of them.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jeffrey hopes one day to become a biology teacher. She\u2019s been a tutor for elementary and middle school students for around six years and has had the opportunity to work with kids with special needs and learning disabilities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI just really fell in love with teaching,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n She knew she didn\u2019t want to teach younger kids, and has always had an interest in science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m just not a math person, but I was never really able to find the science that I knew I wanted to teach. I hated chemistry, I didn\u2019t really like physics, but then I took biology my sophomore year. My teacher is like my number-one role model. She was incredible.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jeffrey enjoyed the class so much that she ended up taking advanced-placement biology with Kathryn Sagamang at Chariho High School this past year. \u201cI became really set on it and I loved it,\u201d she said. Sagamang also attended 溏心vlog免费B站 for secondary education and biology, and was able to help Jeffrey with recommendations on classes and how to navigate the college experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was nice to have a role model going into it, especially in the same degree and someone who went to the same school. She spoke very highly of 溏心vlog免费B站 and was a big influence on me picking my college in the first place.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n This spring, Jeffrey received an early Rhody experience when she was greeted onstage by Rhody Ram and given a custom 溏心vlog免费B站 basketball jersey at the Make-A-Wish Rhode Island & Massachusetts\u2019 Annual Evening of Wishes, where she found out her wish was granted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The theme of this year\u2019s Evening of Wishes was \u2018The Ripple Effect.\u2019 In her speech, Jeffrey spoke about how her wish will have an impact beyond her:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNot only will the tuition support from Make-A-Wish help ease the financial burden of my degree, but indirectly, it will help others pay it forward in my career of teaching,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen I was told the theme of tonight\u2019s event was The Ripple Effect, I knew my wish fit perfectly. The gift of continuing my education will have a lifelong impact on my future career as a teacher and hopefully will impact the future generations whom I have the pleasure of teaching.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Michael Vieira \u201910, the regional director for Make-A-Wish Rhode Island & Massachusetts, the organization grants on average 400 wishes per year to children aged 2.5 to 18 with life-threatening illnesses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe work with children who have overcome or are battling serious illnesses and we are excited to have the opportunity to give them back some of the joy of their childhood, and hopefully give them hope for the future,\u201d Viera said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As her first semester nears, Jeffrey expressed her gratitude to the team at Make-A-Wish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s been life-changing, especially to see all the opportunities I\u2019ve gotten from it \u2014 they\u2019ve invited me to attend different events to speak to different people, there\u2019s a lot of networking involved, which I never thought I would get to be a part of,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s definitely been fun, especially working with Michael because he\u2019s super funny. He\u2019s sent me little video clips of products they made out of my speech and stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vieira worked with Jeffrey throughout her wish process, and said that she is \u201can incredible young person.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShe\u2019s a wonderful young person and she really thought a lot about what she wanted her wish to be, and when she came to the conclusion that the wish for her was tuition assistance to 溏心vlog免费B站, we wanted to find a way to make that really special for her and to make it a celebration of the incredible future that she has in front of her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEvery 溏心vlog免费B站 alumni, myself included, will tell you that a 溏心vlog免费B站 education brings great joy and brings great hope for the future,\u201d he added. \u201cMeghan is an incredible young person and I look forward to what she\u2019s going to do in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n 溏心vlog免费B站 Make-A-Wish\u00ae Massachusetts and Rhode Island <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Make-A-Wish\u00ae Massachusetts and Rhode Island creates life-changing wishes for children with critical illnesses. A wish can be a spark that helps a child believe anything is possible. In the face of life-threatening medical conditions, wishes enable children to experience profound joy, renewed strength and resiliency, and lasting hope to keep striving and dreaming for the future. Together with generous supporters and more than 300 volunteers, the organization has granted the wishes of over 9,000 children in Massachusetts and Rhode Island since its founding nearly 40 years ago. Its vision is to grant the wish of every medically eligible child. For more information and ways to get involved, visit www.massri.wish.org<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary Lind, a graduate student who works in 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Department of Marketing and Communications, wrote this release.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KINGSTON \u2013 July 18, 2022 \u2013 When Meghan Jeffrey was first approached by Make-A-Wish Massachusetts and Rhode Island three years ago, she planned to use her wish on a family trip to Hawaii. Then COVID-19 hit. Instead, Jeffrey, an incoming first-year student who will start studying biology and secondary education this fall at the University […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":80200,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80197"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80339,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80197\/revisions\/80339"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}