Metro grants young child’s Make-A-Wish dream come to life

WASHINGTON (DC News Now) — Jacob Crandall celebrated his 10th birthday Wednesday and Metro made it one he and his family will never forget.

Jacob and his family had a Metro bus to themselves for a 30-minute ride around the District, as Metro granted its first ever Make-A-Wish request.

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“He loves trucks and buses and he likes to ride around looking at the trucks and buses,” said Joe Keyerleber, Jacob’s great-uncle.

The ride comes at a challenging time for the family. Jacob is dealing with a critical illness and, according to Make-A-Wish, underwent a bone marrow transplant last week.

“It’s been a strain on everybody,” Keyerleber said. “But to see an event like this kind of puts a real positive spin on what he’s going through and the whole family feels relieved [to] be able to have all this spirit of cooperation to bring this event to Jacob and give them a really big happy day. He hasn’t had many of them lately.”

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Metro said it took about a week to organize everything for Jacob’s special trip.

“We know Jacob and his family are going through an incredibly challenging time right now,” said Metro Senior Vice President of Bus Services, Leroy Jones. “But we hope we can bring them a little bit of joy today and create some really good memories.”

Those memories include an escort from Metro police, as Jacob had his wish come true.

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