UAH employees take Make-A-Wish Alabama Trailblaze Challenge to help critically ill children

Before Laurel Long and Dr. Jennifer Bail experienced a marathon Make-A-Wish Alabama Trailblaze Challenge, they stood miles apart on the subject of hiking.

“Hiking was one of my top 10 things I was never going to do in life because I hated the outdoors,” says Long, associate vice president, Human Resources, at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of The University of Alabama System. “I thought those people were crazy.”

“Hiking is one of my favorite activities, just being outdoors,” says Bail, associate professor in the UAH College of Nursing. “It’s a great way to de-stress and exercise.”

The Trailblaze Challenge shows how a great cause – making wishes come true for children with critical illnesses – can overcome doubts, inspire commitment and bring people together.

“It was just an awesome community of people that I stepped into,” says Long, who first signed up in 2023 at the urging of her fitness coach. “As it turned out, I love to hike. I wasn’t prepared to enjoy it, and it is very hard, but I just love it!”

About two years after Long went crazy for hiking, she served as a finish-line volunteer when Bail completed her first 26.3-mile Trailblaze hike on May 4, 2024, in Talladega National Forest. Long, a second-year Trailblaze veteran, had been part of the April 20 hike group.

The efforts of Bail and Long and the rest of the hikers raised $1,047,235 for wish kids this year, the third year in a row that the Make-A-Wish Alabama Trailblaze Challenge has topped $1 million. This past year Make-A-Wish Alabama granted a record 215 wishes. The Trailblaze Challenge, going into its ninth year in 2025, is the group’s largest fundraiser.

Attending an information session in January is the first step on the Trailblaze path. Details on session sign-ups for 2025 will be available on the website, AlabamaTrailblaze.org, after Oct. 17. The free sessions are required for all hikers, but attending a session is not a commitment to hike.

“When I went to the information session,” Bail says, “they had several children who were either waiting for wishes or who had already had a wish granted, and they shared their stories. I didn’t understand the extent of Make-A-Wish and how many children were waiting for wishes and the impact that the wishes have on the children.”

Wishes take various forms – vacation trips, meeting favorite celebrities, special presents like a bike or a puppy, even a day as a princess or a firefighter.

“Sometimes, because they’re ill, they’re considered a weird kid at school,” Bail says. “One child’s wish was to go on a Pokemon shopping spree because he loved Pokemon. When he went back to school, he had all this cool Pokemon stuff, and everybody wanted to be his friend.”

What wishes really deliver is hope, and hope can bring concrete health benefits. Bail cites research showing that children who were granted wishes can have better outcomes.

“Sometimes when a child is going through treatment, it’s really hard. If they know that their wish is under review or they’re going to be granted a wish, it gives them something to fight for. They have to get better because they can’t have their wish granted while they’re in the hospital.”

Wish kids are referred to the program by physicians. For children to be eligible, they must be between 2 ½ to 18 years old and diagnosed with a progressive, degenerative or malignant condition that is placing the child’s life in jeopardy.

The wishes, Bail notes, benefit the child’s family, too.

“When you have a child with critical illness, it takes a toll on the entire family, not only emotionally and physically but financially. You may be staying in the hospital for months at a time. You might have to quit your job. A lot of children ask to go on a family trip because they want to spend time with their family doing something other than being in the hospital.”

Nursing is Bail’s second career. After her mother died of breast cancer, she left her job at Teledyne Brown Engineering to pursue a nursing degree with oncology as her area of interest. She works with adult patients, and she says she’s glad for this “amazing” Make-A-Wish opportunity to help children who really need a boost.

Bail and Long agree that the marathon hike is physically challenging, but you don’t have to be a marathon athlete to participate.

“If you can walk two to three miles, we can get you to where you need to be,” Bail says. “Every week they have training hikes in Huntsville, Birmingham and Mobile. You’re building up every week. You increase your miles. They give you a training plan that includes the stuff you need to do between the hikes, maybe cross training, walking, yoga or weightlifting.”

“I'm already thinking about how can I train differently and get better prepared for next year,” says Long, who was surprised this year when her fellow hikers gave her the Spirit of Trailblazer Award. “Just try it. You have nothing to lose other than going on a few hikes and meeting some great people.

“And then we have the added bonus to make a wish come true for the kids. Now I divide my life into before Trailblaze Challenge and after because it really has been so profoundly impactful for me.”