April is World Wish Month. WTOP has teamed up with Make-A-Wish Mid-Atlantic to spotlight the amazing kids and volunteers that are part of this organization. To view our coverage, learn more about how you can become a WishMaker and make a donation, visit our Make-A-Wish hub.
Lyndzi Young carries a certain superstar quality — charisma, wit and endless optimism.
She has a commanding presence, particularly on camera, and while in the WTOP studios recording her own commercial recently, admitted she could see herself working in broadcasting at some point.
For now, she’s a young woman of many talents.
“So I joined soccer maybe two years ago, and we have been a championship team for two years,” she told WTOP. “I went from midfield to defense, which I don’t know how that happened!”
On the surface, Lyndzi is a normal 13-year-old dealing with life in the way that any normal teenager does.
But her road to get to this point, and her involvement with Make-A-Wish Mid-Atlantic, has been anything but ordinary.
“When they checked her blood pressure, they noticed that her blood pressure was elevated,” said Wish Mom Kimberly “Kim” Young, who shared her daughter’s Make-A-Wish story with WTOP.
It all started 8 years ago, right after the family returned home from a vacation when they received an alarming message from their doctor at a yearly checkup.
“He said, ‘I need you to go to Fairfax right away,’” Kim said, referring to Inova Fairfax Children’s Hospital.
At just 5 years old, Lyndzi was diagnosed with kidney disease and her condition deteriorated fast. A couple days in the hospital turned into more than three months.
Lyndzi said it was hard to process so young.
“I never knew if I would just go to sleep and not wake back up,” she said, stating it was a dark time for the family.
Lyndzi underwent several surgeries. But, eventually, it became clear — her kidneys needed to be removed.
“She was on dialysis every day,” Kim said, adding the doctors told her Lyndzi’s kidneys were essentially nonfunctioning.
And that’s when the reality hit: her youngest child — her baby, in a family with no history of kidney disease — needed a transplant.
“Especially being a 5-year-old, that was, like, made my heart start racing,” Lyndzi told WTOP.
“We had people that just lined up to donate their kidney to her,” Kim said.
By some miracle — something Kim said is a sign of their family’s deep-rooted faith — both she and her husband LaMonte were perfect matches.
“They ended up deciding to take my kidney,” Kim said. Making the ultimate sacrifice as a parent, she added, was something she didn’t think twice about.
When told that a part of herself lives inside of her daughter, Kim replied jokingly: “As if she didn’t have enough of me.”
“It’s so I can keep an eye on her,” Kim added.
Lyndzi underwent the transplant procedure at Children’s National Hospital in 2017 and made a full recovery. During her stay in the hospital, she got a visit from Make-A-Wish Mid-Atlantic, which inspired her to keep pushing even more.
“Make-A-Wish is probably one of the coolest things that happened to me in that whole experience,” Lyndzi said.
Just last year, when Lyndzi was 12, she and her family, including older siblings Jacob and Sophia, took a trip to Hawaii — provided by Make-A-Wish Mid-Atlantic. The organization held the trip for the family until after the pandemic, and for when Lyndzi was strong enough to have the most fun.
Fun fact about Lyndzi: her favorite Disney animated movie takes place in Hawaii.
“I thought of Moana, like my favorite,” she said. “I was like, Where was she? Where’d she come from? So, you know, I kind of put that together. I was like, that it’s a magical place.”
The family experienced a tropical paradise, something Kim and Jacob said felt like a victory lap, provided by Make-A-Wish.
“We just believed that she was gonna make it out,” Jacob said, reflecting on the time his baby sister struggled in the hospital. “It wasn’t anything we couldn’t overcome.”
“[It was] kind of unbelievable just how abundant the blessings were from all the volunteers and the donors,” Kim added.
Today, Lyndzi said she wants to give others facing near insurmountable odds hope, like her family, and Make-A-Wish gave to her.
“I’m like, ‘oh, that’s maybe what I meant to do.’ I want to help,” she said. “I think going through that experience is what it really meant … to tell me that I have enough courage, and I have enough power, to get through anything when you put your mind to it. That’s where I really found myself.”
The Young family started their own nonprofit, Lyndzi’s Ice Cream Corp., to provide financial relief to those experiencing similar circumstances to theirs.
Aside from chasing a successful broadcasting career, Lyndzi said giving back through her own venture and Make-A-Wish is something she will do for the rest of her life.
“Make-A-Wish definitely made that possible for me to reach for the stars and achieve my dreams,” she said.
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