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Nonprofit
Professional
Performance
Magazine
F
rank Shankwitz founded Make-A-Wish in
1980. With a mission to grant the wishes
of children with life-threatening medical
conditions to enrich the human experience with
hope, strength and joy, the organization now
helps to serve children in nearly 50 countries on
five continents through its 36 affiliates. Hugh
Ballou, co-publisher of Nonprofit Performance
Magazine, sat down with Frank to discuss the
origin and continuing success of Make-A-Wish.
Hugh Ballou:
Frank, give us some background
about yourself. You were a police officer?
Frank Shankwitz:
I was with the Arizona
Department of Public Safety. I started as a
highway patrol car officer and, when they started
the motorcycle program, I rode motorcycles
for 11 years. Then I worked as a detective in
narcotics, sex crimes, political corruption, and
eventually homicide, where I spent the majority
of my career. I recently retired with 42 years of
service.
Ballou:
How did the vision for the Make-A-
Wish Foundation come about?
Shankwitz:
While I was riding motorcycles
as a police officer, the television show CHiPs
became very popular, especially with young
children. I was on a ten-man squad, working the
whole state of Arizona. A two-man team would
be in one town for two weeks and then move
to another town, wherever they needed us for
big events, especially in tourist areas. Children
thought we looked like the guys on CHiPs, and
we initially trained with the California Highway
Patrol. During slow times we went to local grade
schools and talked to the children about bicycle
safety, which they couldn’t care less about, but
they had fun on the motorcycles. It was a great
PR tool.
In 1978, I was involved in a high-speed chase
with a drunk driver, and another drunk driver ran
a stop sign. I hit him broadside at 80 mph and
was pronounced dead at the scene. An off-duty
emergency room nurse performed CPR and
heart massage for four minutes and brought me
back to life. It took six months to recover from
that accident, but I kept wondering why I was
spared. Was there a mission for me in life?
In 1980, I received a phone call from a fellow
officer, Ron Cox, who had met a little boy named
Chris. Chris was seven years old, and he had
leukemia with only a couple weeks to live. His
heroes were Paunch and John from CHiPs.
Chris told his family and Ron, “When I grow up,
I want to be a motorcycle officer just like Paunch
and John on CHiPs.” The family asked if there
was anything that we could do that would cheer
this little boy up. Ron knew that I had worked
with children and told me that they had set up
a special date for Chris with his doctors, his
mother, and our commanders, flying Chris from
his hospital in Scottsdale, Arizona, to our state
police headquarters in Phoenix. Ron wanted me
to be there with my motorcycle, since I’d worked
with children before and I looked like the CHiPs
Fairy Tales Still Come True
An Interview with Frank Shankwitz
MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION
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