As a child, 97-year-old Olive Horrell grew up on a rural farm in Montana. She got around on a horse and buggy, did not have electricity, and did not even own a radio. When she was eight years old, her family moved to California, where they struggled and lived through the Great Depression. Indeed, she had seen many technological developments in her lifetime. From the very first computer she saw, which was 3-by-3 feet large and used punch cards to operate, to being given a private tour around the Google Campus to be granted her wish to see the future.
At Google, Horell took a ride in a self-driving car, tried on a virtual reality headset, and saw other technologies being developed by the creative and innovative minds at the company headquarters. It was a wish helped granted by the Wish of a Lifetime non-profit organization which grants the wishes of seniors. Google's own co-founder, Sergey Brin, is one of the groups biggest individual donors and supporters.
The former two-time Olympic skier and NFL player was inspired to set up Wish of A Lifetime by his experience with his own grandparents. Today, he runs a tech company in Arizona, but still works hard to grant the wish of at least one senior a day.
Among the wishes the foundation has granted was a grand reunion among sisters who were all in their hundreds, and a special trip for a woman from Mississippi to see the ocean for the first time in her life.
Horell heartily thanked Bloom for his work in granting seniors their wishes, saying that most of the time they are left to be forgotten and unseen by society. She said her trip to Google was certainly worth the three years it took for her to decide which of her wishes she wanted granted.
“Certainly in my wildest dreams, I couldn’t conceive of what I saw today.”
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