A surprise wish for Bella

Now she and her sister have their own firehouse

By John Howell
Posted 5/3/16

“Calling all kids, calling all kids,” an excited Bella Clary yelled to her friends Friday afternoon after a fire engine pulled up in front of her home on Watson Street.

Many of those friends, …

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A surprise wish for Bella

Now she and her sister have their own firehouse

Posted

“Calling all kids, calling all kids,” an excited Bella Clary yelled to her friends Friday afternoon after a fire engine pulled up in front of her home on Watson Street.

Many of those friends, including Bella, had ridden the fire truck from Oakland Beach School to the house. Now parents and officials wanted photos of the kids and the truck.

That’s not all they wanted to capture on their cell phones and cameras.

There’s a firehouse on the Clary property, too. No, the department isn’t adding another company, although the city had a hand in building the station. This is a kid-sized Chicago station. It’s the work of the construction trades program at the Warwick Area Career and Technical Center.

But there’s so much more to the story than high school students building a fire station for a 10-year-old who has made a miraculous recovery since receiving a bone marrow transplant from her father more than a year ago. It involves the Warwick-based A Wish Come True organization, a management class at Bryant University, and a 9-year-old author, Ava Milukas of Tiverton.

“Project Playhouse,” as it has been dubbed, was a service project coordinated by the Bryant students. They called on A Wish Come True and then recruited the Warwick Career and Tech Center, as well as Davies and Chariho. In all, three houses were built.

Thomas McGovern, executive director of A Wish Come True, explained Ava Milukas entered the scene when she started selling her book, “Ava’s Guide to Living a Perfect Life,” as a fundraiser for A Wish Come True. She was asked to design a “writer’s retreat.” That house will be used by the organization as a promotional fundraiser. McGovern said it will appear in the Gaspee Days parade and at events at Hendricken High.

McGovern is delighted by how the project has rallied sections of the community around a common cause to bring enjoyment to kids who like Bella have undergone life threatening situations or face severe handicaps. Over the years, A Wish Come True has granted some unusual wishes, including the purchase of a horse for one child, and provided opportunities to meet celebrities including athletes and entertainers. One child wanted to meet Lady Gaga. A friendship developed and they remain in contact even though it is years later, said McGovern.

“Medicine and the magic of a wish can and do make miracles,” he said.

In the case of Bella, it was a bleeding loose tooth in the summer of 2013 that led to the diagnosis she was suffering from severe aplastic anemia. Her red blood cell, white blood cell and platelet levels were very low. Her father, Paul Clary, said Bella had had some bruises, but because she is highly active and a bit of a tomboy they didn’t think it out of the ordinary. When the tooth kept bleeding, they learned the news and that a bone marrow transplant was her best hope. Physicians tested her sister, Fannie, but she wasn’t a match. Initially, they ruled out her father because of age, but then he became the only match.

It was four months before Bella went in for the operation, and then there was an extended period of isolation following that. She was tutored by her science teacher, Susan Masse from Oakland Beach School, so she “didn’t miss a beat.” Bella’s recovery has been so complete that Clary said doctors have prolonged what had been monthly scheduled tests.

“You wouldn’t know her, she’s a different girl,” says Bella’s mother, Sherry.

It was a year ago in April that A Wish Come True granted Bella’s wish and sent here and her family to Give Kids the World Village at Disney World.

As for the Project Playhouse and the fire station, Bella didn’t learn of that until last Thursday at an event at the Bryant campus. Warwick Fire Chief brought Bella and her younger sister to the house. It is equipped with a fire alarm box, fire department decals, and on a reel in the back is a section of outdated fire hose with a nozzle that can be linked to a garden hose. It was rigged up and working Friday.

Bella’s father suspects his daughter’s interest in fire equipment and the department could be an offshoot of his job and concern over home safety. He is the director of facilities at Refocusing Inc. in Providence.

Bella was thrilled. She and her friends were in and out of the house, closing doors, opening windows. She didn’t seem to see the mayor, who had shown up for the occasion, nor the chief or Councilwoman Donna Travis. And when the crew on the engine rolled out a hose, charged it, and had Bella take control, it wasn’t for long.

“Can my friends do it?” she wanted to know.

Bella is into sharing the fun and her firehouse.

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