Local Child Takes The Ride Of A Lifetime

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – Every senior class at Heritage Academy chooses a senior project to complete before graduation.

This year, the 2019 class is partnering with the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Ethan Marsh is a seven year old boy battling his own health.

Seniors at Heritage Academy have already helped grant one of his wishes, but they’re wanting to do even more.

Students and teachers at Heritage Academy have spent weeks preparing for Monday night’s Christmas parade in downtown Columbus.

Their plan is to give little Ethan Marsh the parade ride of a lifetime.

“I’m excited to see Ethan when he gets to be on the parade tomorrow and get to see everybody in the crowd cheering for him which i’m really excited about,” says senior volunteer Gigi Fields.

The 2019 Class has already raised over $10,000 to send Ethan to Disney World next Fall, but they wanted to do something even more special by giving him his own Disney themed float in the local Christmas parade.

“His family is going to be like the center of it and they’ll be the center of attention and we’ll be walking around him to support him,” says senior Emmie Fair.

Ethan has spent the majority of his life in and out of hospitals.

“Ethan has T-O-F which is a rare heart disease and he has a hypo-blastic kidney. He’s had multiple heart surgeries, multiple kidney surgeries and he also has Autism so he kind of faces some speech issues,” says Ethan’s father Chris Marsh.

Ethan’s father also says the past few years have been very challenging for his family.

“It’s been really hard with the travel you know going back and forth to jackson,” says Marsh.

The volunteers at Heritage Academy hope the trip to Disney and the parade will be a source of joy in Ethan’s life.

“Their biggest concern usually is like medical issues and everything and getting to send him to Disney is something he would not get to usually experience,” says Fields.

“I think it’ll definitely play a big part in his life and he’ll always have something to remember and whenever he’s down he can always think about how this made a positive impact on him,” says Fair.

“It won’t compare to his Disney trip but we hope that maybe it will kind of lead it into that grand finale that he will get later,” says Senior Project Co-sponsor Lynne Sneed.

“I just hope that one day he can look back on it and see that people cared about his condition,” says Marsh.

Students say even though they’ve reached their goal of $10,000, they want to continue raising money and possibly grant a second child’s wish.