Charity has long been at the forefront of Fort Worth Magazine’s Dream Home, which this year is celebrating its 25th anniversary. Sure, the project teams together some of Greater Fort Worth’s best home builders, architects, interior designers, and subcontractors to construct a stunning home in one of the city’s most exclusive neighborhoods, but the major beneficiary of home tour tickets sales is local charity a Wish with Wings.
This important aspect of the project is what convinces many of the homebuilding industry’s most talented professionals to join the project and to return year after year. Interior designer Susan Semmelmann, who this year is designing her seventh Dream Home, says it’s the mission-driven message that keeps her coming back. “The spirit of living is giving,” Semmelmann told us back in December. “We love that we can go out and forge that path in our local community to give back to not only a Wish with Wings but also diving into our community with tremendous passion for what we do.”
Before the 2013 Dream Home, the magazine partnered with a different local charity for each year’s Dream project — the charity receiving profits from home tour ticket sales. In 2013, the magazine teamed up with a Wish with Wings, and the nonprofit has been the signature beneficiary of the Dream Home ever since.
“I think it became obvious at that time that [becoming the annual beneficiary of Fort Worth Magazine’s Dream Home] was a natural fit,” said Judy Youngs, president and CEO of a Wish with Wings.
The main charge of this local charity is to fulfill the wishes of children with life-threatening medical diagnoses. Whether it’s going to Disney World, visiting Hawaii, petting cheetahs, or swimming with dolphins, a Wish with Wings has granted over 1,900 wishes to North Texas children over its 43 years of existence. In 2024, the nonprofit had a banner year, fulfilling 64 wishes, the most in its history. And one particular wish, one granted to a 7-year-old girl named Dream, required far more than their typical request.
Dream has multiple diagnoses that render her nonambulatory — unable to walk — and non-verbal. She lives in an older home in Fort Worth that required substantial modifications to make it more accessible for Dream. “[The home] was not conducive for what she truly needed to keep her on track for a healthier lifestyle,” Youngs says. “For instance, she receives physical therapy in her home every day, and the only room they could use was about the size of a small walk-in closet.”
To fulfill this wish and improve Dream’s residence, a Wish with Wings partnered with over 20 different contractors and vendors to renovate Dream’s home, a project that took nearly two years to complete. And in January, a Wish with Wings introduced an overjoyed Dream, sporting a pink bow in her hair, polka dot shoes, and a Minnie Mouse sweater, to her newly renovated digs.
Not a dry eye spotted.
“It was such an amazing wish,” Youngs says. “It really touched all of us, and it makes us refocus on our mission. This is truly what we are all about and why we do what we do for these kids.”
Though a Wish with Wings is a small organization with only one part-time and three full-time employees, they have mighty objectives. But, like all charities, their work requires a little assistance from the hearts of the public. According to Youngs, the annual Dream Home has played a major role in helping the organization fulfill wishes like the one granted to Dream.
“It’s incredible,” Youngs says. “Not only the attention and awareness, but the revenue that [the Dream Home] produces for us. It’s difficult to replace a revenue stream like that — one that has been so continuous annually.”
This year’s Fort Worth Magazine Dream Home, designed and built by Morrison Group and located in the West Fort Worth neighborhood of Montrachet, will open for touring in late May. All proceeds from ticket sales will benefit a Wish with Wings.
