Duels are common at the weekly pirate party inside the Village. (All photos were taken prepandemic, and masks are now required.)
Courtesy of Give Kids the World Village
The world’s most magical place is not somewhere you would ever hope to go. Admittance is sacred, special, and limited to the very few who are lucky enough to receive an all-expenses-paid trip to central Florida to be fêted as guests of honor, though some might say it is a very lack of luck or felicity that brought them here in the first place: a damning of atoms, a genetic wild card. To be lucky enough to visit this place, you will be unlucky enough to be a child with a critical illness, or someone in their constellation. But here, at Give Kids the World Village, these illnesses seem to matter a little less, if only for a week. Here you fly. Here, you are in most excellent company.
Of the roughly 27,000 children in the United States diagnosed with a critical illness every year, a majority are eligible to have wishes granted through organizations such as the Dream Factory or Make-A-Wish, which considers eligible any child age 3–18 with a “progressive, degenerative or malignant condition that has placed the child’s life in jeopardy.” Roughly half of these 27,000 children wish to come to the Orlando area, where Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando, and SeaWorld dance just down the street from each other. But many of these children and their families stay 22 miles south on the Florida Turnpike, at Give Kids the World Village, where, once they arrive, they realize they’d rather not fill their days at Disney or SeaWorld after all. They’d prefer to spend their time there. At the 89-acre storybook resort that was designed just for them, once upon a time.
“I see life differently from someone who has not seen life’s dark side,” Henri Landwirth, founder of Give Kids the World, wrote in his 1996 memoir, Gift of Life. “Moments are precious, every moment.”
Henri Landwirth as a young man. Before founding Give Kids the World Village, Landwirth made a name for himself as a hotelier.
Courtesy of the Landwirth family via the Henri Landwirth Collection at the Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica
Henri Landwirth was born in Antwerp, Belgium, on March 1, 1927, along with his twin sister, Margot, to Jewish clothing salesman Max Landwirth and his wife, Fanny. In 1930, the Landwirths moved to Poland, compelled by Max’s belief that more opportunity awaited there—in his home country—than in Belgium. For years, there was.
In 1939, the year Germany invaded Poland and initiated World War II, Max was taken without reason to a prison called Radom and incarcerated, held without trial. Fanny traveled to see him every day, but never made it past the first guard. In time, Henri, Fanny, and Margot were herded into the Krakow ghetto and later packed into train cars. Henri arrived at Auschwitz, where he became no one to camp guards but prisoner B4343, identified by the tattoo on his left forearm. “To be treated in a manner which is beneath that of an animal is at once both confusing and frightening,” he wrote. “What words can convey the total lack of dignity that takes over a person’s soul when such unimaginable events suddenly become the only reality?” He was 13.
Nearly five years passed. In that time, Henri was shuttled between Auschwitz, Mauthausen, Płaszów, Gusen, and Ostrowitz. He worked on guns designed to shoot down Allied planes, and dug underground in unnamed places. In 1943, at Auschwitz, Henri learned his mother was also at the camp. He went to see her. She smiled and asked him: “You wouldn’t have an extra piece of bread, son, would you?” Henri did not. Later, he learned she’d been loaded onto a boat with thousands of other Jewish prisoners, never to return to any sort of shore. His father had been shot outside the prison in Radom.
In 1944, Henri was recaptured after an escape attempt. Three German soldiers marched him and two other Jewish prisoners to the woods. There, on the forest’s edge, one of the “great miracles” of Henri’s life took place: “The war is almost over. I don’t want to kill these people,” one of the soldiers said. The others shrugged. When I raise my gun, run into the woods, Henri recalled the soldier telling him. The soldier raised his gun and then lowered it. Henri ran.
Henri ran, walked, and limped until he found an empty house and collapsed. Later, he would learn the house was in the city of Dvůr Králové, near Prague. He had traveled from one country to another. Nearly 18 then, Henri was treated for gangrene in his legs and an infection from a fractured skull. When the war officially ended in 1945, he returned to Krakow, where he worked for a dentist and took a trolley to the Missing Persons Center every day at 1 p.m., hoping for news about his family. Soon, he heard a rumor that Margot was alive and living in a small town in the center of Germany, some 500 miles away. He left to find her. Once he reached her reported address, he whistled a tune they’d whistled to each other during childhood—one only she would recognize. In minutes, she whistled back.
In 1950, Henri bade farewell to Margot and Belgium and sailed to New York City as a deck laborer with $20 and a Torah. He had a sixth-grade education and a basic command of English, but soon got a job cutting diamonds in Midtown Manhattan. All was well, sort of, until Henri received a letter from the president, Harry S. Truman—a draft notice for the Korean War.
Henri served two years as a telephone repairman stateside, in Fort Dix, New Jersey. After his discharge, by day, Henri studied hotel management on the G.I. Bill. By night, he worked the desk at Manhattan’s Wellington Hotel on Seventh Avenue and 59th Street. In 1954, he went to Miami on his honeymoon with his then-wife Josephine and never returned north. Soon, he was manager at the President Madison Hotel in Miami Beach, making $120 a week. He was 27 years old.
One evening, Henri loaned a tie to a man who had forgotten to bring his own and needed one to dine in the hotel’s restaurant. What providence: That man was B.G. McNabb of General Dynamics, who was responsible for helping develop the new space program at Cape Canaveral. There was no hotel in the area for the astronauts, so McNabb was building one with 100 rooms. He called it the Starlite Motel. One problem: McNabb had no one to run the Starlite Motel. Days later, he directed his employees to go to the President Madison Hotel and find the manager he remembered. “I can’t tell you his name,” McNabb said. “But he had a funny accent.”
In the early days of space exploration, preparing to bask in the glow of the stars, the astronauts lived there at that Starlite Motel managed by Henri. Dubbed Project Mercury astronauts, they included Gus Grissom, Alan Shepard, and John Glenn, who would become Henri’s business partner and godfather to one of his children. The astronauts gave Henri a photo with an inscription that read, “To Henri, Keeper of the Cape, the service is outstanding and the rates so reasonable!” Later, they would also gift him an American flag they’d taken to space. “This flag has been to the moon, which is good—and it has returned to earth, which is even better—,” they wrote.
Though Henri himself never reached space, his ascent on this planet continued, and by 1969, he had franchised his first Holiday Inn near Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando. Because of the hotel’s proximity to the theme park, wish-granting organizations often asked Henri if he would donate free rooms to children and their families needing a place to stay. He always said yes.
One day, Henri noticed that a free reservation for a young girl named Amy had been canceled. He asked why. In the time it had taken the organization to arrange for her transportation to Disney World, Amy, who had leukemia, had passed away. Henri was upset.
What if it happened again? What if another child simply ran out of time?
And so he did something about it.
One of the 166 villas at Give Kids the World Village. Since reopening in January 2021, capacity has been capped at 25 families.
Courtesy of Give Kids the World Village
Henri started Give Kids the World in 1986 with the idea of bringing together foundations, corporations, and individuals to benefit critically ill children and their families. He had public backing from the Project Mercury astronauts and Walter Cronkite and received verbal commitments from Disney and SeaWorld that they would offer free park visits and character meet-and-greets. He got 87 Orlando hotels to give the organization five free rooms for every 100 they had. That first year, the collective brought 380 families to Florida. It soon became evident that the need was greater than the supply, and so Henri began thinking bigger—an entire village bigger.
In 1989, Henri opened Give Kids the World Village on 31 acres in Kissimmee, Florida, with a board of representatives from Disney, Universal, PepsiCo, Discovery, Hershey, and Hasbro. Though Henri died in 2018 at age 91, one year after his twin sister, his mission has continued: In the 35 years since its inception, the park has grown to cover 89 acres and include 166 villas. It has welcomed more than 176,000 families from 50 states and 76 countries—Kuwait, Argentina, the United Kingdom, Canada, you name it. Per Henri’s founding principles, no “wish” child wanting to visit has ever been turned away, no matter how little notice the village is given nor how full the villas. There is always room.
In many senses, Give Kids the World Village resembles a small theme park, albeit more whimsical than wild and less commercial than its counterparts. Inside the Castle of Miracles is a forest with a magic tree that makes pillows; under a giant red and white mushroom is the Enchanted Carousel, which has 22 hand-carved seats in the shape of animals. Two of them—the snail and turtle—are wheelchair accessible.
In the Star Tower, more than 132,000 stars light up the ceiling, and Stella the Star Fairy helps each wish child place their own star high above, making the children forever permanent in at least one night sky. There are free movies at Julie’s Safari Theatre, wheelchair-accessible rides, and swimming pools where visitors can roll right into the water, thanks to the park’s supply of water-safe wheelchairs.
At Give Kids the World Village, days pass as lightly and easily as sand slipping over an upturned palm, as if the torment of the world is shushed once you reach the property. One parent told me it is as if the desperation of the moment is gone. Another said it was a feeling “impossible to explain.” For children who are often othered, here, they are normal in an abnormal situation. They are the reason everyone is celebrating and having the best vacations of their lives. After all, it is a vacation—a vacation from chemotherapy, radiation, blood draws, injections, shots, surgeries, scans, transfusions, and that sterile smell of hospital.
All of that is far from mind at Give Kids the World Village, where bodies are only targets during Lazer Tag, and actual targets are themselves taken on at the archery course for teenagers, arrows ribboning through the air with a pfffttttt. Children hop around the striped board of the world’s largest CANDY LAND game, slip down purple slides, and weave through seven-foot-tall candy canes. From 7:30 in the morning until 9:30 at night, unlimited milkshakes, ice cream cones, banana splits, and sundaes are on offer at Henri’s Starlite Scoops, a $2 million space-themed building topped with a 30-foot UFO and designed with accessible ice cream chest freezers. Every evening, a Cookie Cart rolls between villas for two hours, serving freshly baked cookies and hot chocolate. Ask for a cookie, and volunteers will say, “Are you sure you don’t want two or three?” Actor John Stamos, who has quietly visited the village for more than 20 years, will often drop by unannounced to meet children. The gift shop is the only place visitors have to pay for anything, ever.
Still, says Pamela Landwirth, Henri’s ex-wife, who has been president and CEO of Give Kids the World Village since 1995, it is not a theme park. And the particulars are important. “The theme park industry wants to create that perfect experience because they want their guests to keep coming back over and over,” she says. “We want to create that perfect guest experience because our guests get one shot. So the question is, How do we cram a lifetime of experiences into a week?”
The result is programming that reflects just that: Ms. Merry’s Tea Party is every Sunday at the Peppermint Table. Halloween is celebrated on Mondays. Tuesday evenings are marked by fishing at the Park of Dreams pool and celebrating the birthday of Mayor Clayton, a six-foot-tall bunny rabbit who is the “mayor” of the village and partner to Ms. Merry. Wednesday there’s a concert competition à la American Idol. Thursday, a celebration at a Winter Wonderland, Friday a bash with costumes, and Saturday is all about summertime fun. At Give Kids the World Village, it’s 365 days of the year condensed in one week. It’s only the highlight reel, just the hits and the holidays. “I spent 16 wonderful years of my career at Disney, and they call that the happiest place on earth,” says Landwirth. “But I think we outshine that.”
Experiences at Give Kids the World Village are also highly personalized. Weeks before families arrive, volunteers call the children to ask: What’s your favorite color? Your favorite food? Are there any Disney or Universal characters you want to meet? What do you really want to see and do? They then set out to make wishes come true. Rarely do they not succeed.
One teenager named Micah, who had an illness undetectable to the naked eye, told volunteers he felt like an outsider at school, invisible and unimportant. When Micah arrived at Give Kids the World Village, he was led to the castle and greeted by royal subjects, then crowned by a knight and dressed in all shades of blue. He was shown to a custom throne, where he could sit and gaze out over his court.
Another Give Kids the World Village visitor, Anna, a young girl in a wheelchair, wanted to feel like a princess and dance with her father. When Anna was on her trip, Belle from Beauty and the Beast visited from Disney World to help Anna choose a gown and give her a makeover. Anna’s dad then lifted her from the wheelchair, and they twirled around the room. “We start everything with ‘yes,’” Landwirth says of wish requests. “Think about the happiest day of your life. Didn’t you feel like you were on top of the world, and nothing was going to bring you down?”
In addition to an all-expenses-paid trip to the Village, each child receives a custom wish fulfilled by GKTW volunteers.
Courtesy of Give Kids the World Village