WOOLWICH

When 4-year-old Derek

Wilson was offered a wish through Make-A-Wish Maine, he knew just what he wanted: a Ninja Turtle lair.

“When Derek asked for a Ninja Turtle lair, I’m not sure anybody knew what that meant,” said his mother, Nicole Wilson.

“How many kids have ever asked for a Ninja Turtle lair before?” asked Cyrus Wilson, his father.

Make-A-Wish Maine is dedicated to granting the wishes of children with serious, life-threatening conditions. Derek was diagnosed with leukemia almost three years ago, in November 2014, and has been in treatment ever since.

Once Make-A-Wish understood Derek’s unique request, they immediately set about making it a reality. They partnered with Maine Sustainable Forestry Initiative, which was able to donate the necessary labor to plan and build a Ninja Turtle-themed playground.

“For us at Make-A-Wish to be able to partner with a group like this, and have them come to the table with an offer of donated labor, the ability to reach out to their resources to get the supplies that we need and everything like that,” said Make-A-Wish Maine Senior Program Director Kate Vickery. “Not only does it allow us to grant Derek’s wish, but it helps us to save funds to grant even more wishes.”

“It’s part of work to do this sort of thing, but the amount of enthusiasm is not part of it,” said SFI Director Pat Sirois. “I’m really excited about the amount of enthusiasm from our group, because they could very well just say ‘What box do we need to check off for this to fulfill our obligation?’ But that really wasn’t the case.”

The playground was built in pieces at Sirois’ home in Litchfield over the past few weeks.

On Wednesday, the day of the big reveal, Derek and his family were picked up in a limo in the morning to go to his grandfather’s home. With the family gone, trucks carrying the parts of the structure arrived at the house just after noon, and the crew began assembling it for the 3 p.m. reveal.

At 3 p.m., the limo with Derek and family arrived to a crowded scene, with volunteers, friends and family. A blindfolded Derek stepped out of the vehicle, but the blindfold wasn’t on for long — Derek took it off and almost immediately took off running toward his brand-new, custom built Ninja Turtle playground. Pretty soon the other children had joined him, climbing all over the new playground.

The main part of the playground is a two-floor block. Custom-made doors with Derek’s name allow children to enter at the bottom, where they can go into a sewer tunnel to the left or climb a ladder to the open top floor. A spiraling slide takes them back to the ground, and swings are to the right. Appropriately, a child-sized Ninja Turtle stood at the top of the structure to welcome Derek.

“They took his idea and ran with it. They made it bigger than we could have imagined,” said Cyrus Wilson, who said the final product was a complete surprise to him too.

“To see how happy this is going to make him for so long … this is great. He’s really going to enjoy this,” he added.

SFI is partnering with Make-A-Wish on another wish in Bridgton this year. Overall, Make-A-Wish expects to grant wishes to more than 70 children this year.

See a video of Derek’s wish here.