Jonesboro, AR – JonesboroRightNow.com – It was a luau Friday afternoon as Best Manufacturing Inc. and Make-A-Wish granted a wish to a Jonesboro teen to take a trip to Hawaii.
Aaliya Turner is 17 and a Jonesboro High School graduate. She was surprised on Friday with a Hawaiian-themed party to send her off on her travels, complete with lemonade, gifts, hot dogs, and more. While she’s known about the Hawaii trip for a while, the party was a surprise.
“I was really excited and very grateful,” Turner said of receiving the wish. “I was wanting to go to Hawaii because I love beaches, I love the water, and I’ve always wanted to go to an island. Also, my family lives there, and I wanted to visit [them].”
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The Hawaii trip will be a week long, with the itinerary including ziplining, sightseeing, visiting family, and sampling all the food the state has to offer.
Turner was diagnosed with sickle cell disease a few weeks after she was born, according to her mother, Brittney Newmy. Sickle cell disease is a blood disorder affecting hemoglobin production.
“After they ran her test and let us know, it was very scary. But she surpassed all of her goals. A lot of people said, ‘They won’t make it,’ or ‘Things will happen,'” Newmy said. “She graduated top of her class with honors, so I’m proud of that. She’s just great. She’s a great girl.”
The wish, which has been in the works for about a year, was sponsored by Best Manufacturing. Best Manufacturing, which has been involved with Make-A-Wish for several years, provides the wishes through a combination of employee and company donations.
“The fine folks at Best Manufacturing, they care about their community, and they want to do things that they can to help out,” said Michael Payne, general manager of Best Manufacturing. “We’re just happy to be part of it.
Erica Parker, a volunteer wish granter with Make-A-Wish Mid-South, said it was great to see the community continue to help grant wishes.
“Getting to see the community continually backing up this organization, it’s truly just so fulfilling in knowing that we care so much about helping others.”
Hopefully, Turner said, Hawaii is just the start of her travels. In the future, she wants to travel across Asia, including countries like Thailand and Japan, and she looks forward to telling people about her experience.
“It’ll be a pleasant experience to tell everyone that I had; it’ll be a nice experience to tell them that I had, to tell them that these people granted me a wish and that they’re so kind to give it to me,” she said. “It’ll be one of my things to checkmark on places that I visited, because I love traveling.”
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