Poppy, 13 years old, VA | 9 DAYS WAITING

Wish submitted by:

Poppy once painted a sunset using coffee grounds, a worn-out toothbrush, and the back of a cereal box. Growing up in foster care, where moving meant carrying everything she owned in a trash bag, taught her to make art out of whatever she could find. Poppy is a quiet, imaginative girl who notices colors other people walk right past, like the exact pink of an evening sky or the deep blue of a rainy sidewalk. She lives in a foster home, learning to trust that she can unpack and stay, and her caregivers have noticed that she lights up whenever a pencil is in her hand. Poppy dreams of becoming a muralist who paints bright, hopeful scenes on her community's walls so no kid ever has to walk past a blank, gray wall. She has spent her life making beauty out of almost nothing, and she is ready to see what she can do with something.

Poppy has made art from whatever she could find for as long as she can remember, once painting a sunset with coffee grounds, a worn-out toothbrush, and the back of a cereal box. Growing up in foster care, she taped her drawings to the wall of each new room so it would feel a little less strange. Now she lives in a foster home where she is learning to trust that she can unpack and stay, and she is ready for tools that match her talent. An art easel with a starter set of real paints, brushes, canvases, and sketching pencils would give her a space that is entirely her own, where she can finally watch her colors come to life on a proper canvas. Poppy dreams of becoming a muralist who paints bright, hopeful scenes on her community's walls, and this would be the first real step toward that dream.