ALAMO -- Dementia and cancer have robbed John "Joel" Rusk of his ability to enjoy much of life's pleasures, but the music he loves still inspires him to smile.

Rusk, on hospice care since October and given months to live, celebrated his 85th birthday in style Tuesday, serenaded by a five-piece jazz ensemble that squeezed into the foyer of the Casa Blanca Retirement 回家, filling the Spanish-style house with the sounds of Dixieland.

Rusk, born in Finland and a longtime resident of Antioch, was a saxo电话 player in his younger days and during the 1980s served as president of the East Bay Traditional Jazz Society.

据他64岁的妻子埃斯特蕾拉说，爵士乐一直是她丈夫的爱好。 Before his health problems, she said, the couple went to festivals throughout the year. 再次听到音乐，她说，帮助他回忆起他的青春。

埃斯特拉·鲁斯克说：“这让他的神经平静下来，振奋精神。” "Every time he hears the sax ... 你会看到他脸上的笑容。”

Though he can no longer play the saxo电话, Rusk can manage a simple tune on the harmonica. At his birthday bash, he was presented with a brand new harmonica, 澳门威尼斯人网上赌场 he used to play along with the band to the Duke Ellington standard "在 A Sentimental Mood."

His belated jazz-themed birthday, complete with a cake topped by musical notes, was made possible by the An Elderly Wish Foundation, an Antioch nonprofit that -- similar to the Make-A-Wish Foundation for children -- grants wishes to seniors 60 and over in Contra Costa County who have a terminal or life-threatening illness.

Former Pittsburg resident Rebecca Crowder founded the organization in 2000, granting the first wish to her mother Elizabeth McWhorter, who got to play the slots one more time in Reno. Crowder then used inheritance money to fulfill more wishes, and An Elderly Wish was born.

Mary Chapman, the foundation's executive director, has been with the group from almost the beginning, and said she gets a reward out of bringing smiles to seniors faced with life-threatening illnesses and seeing the joy it brings to their families.

“如果我们为孩子们做了，为什么不能为老年人做呢？” They're kids at heart," she said. “我们仍然可以做些事情让他们开心。 That's why we do 澳门威尼斯人网上赌场 we do."

Since its inception, An Elderly Wish has granted 130 wishes, ranging from the extravagant -- Alaskan cruises, a Hawaiian vacation and limo rides -- to the simple, like setting up a Skype meeting between sisters who hadn't seen each other in 13 years and fulfilling a man's wish of fishing in the San Joaquin Delta one last time.

To grant Rusk's wish, Chapman contacted Los Medanos College in Pittsburg looking for a saxo电话 player. Music student Isaac Fematt eagerly responded and called his friends to form a full jazz quintet for Rusk's special day.
“我只是觉得这太神奇了，”费马特说。 "We just all feel honored to play for someone who really appreciates it, especially somebody in his condition."

While there are numerous wish-granting groups in the country for children, only a few serve the elderly, such as the Dream Foundation in Santa Barbara, and the S.H.O.W. (Seniors Having One Wish) Foundation, in Murrieta. Fewer deal only with terminally ill seniors, among them the Bucket List Foundation in Arizona.

One of the largest national wish-granting organizations, Wish of A Lifetime, was founded by Olympic skier and former NFL football player Jeremy Bloom, who lives in San Francisco. Since 2008, the group has made more than 550 wishes come true for seniors in 45 states.

"Ultimately, our goal is to change the way society views aging, and we do that through granting lifelong wishes to deserving seniors who have given so much for our freedoms," George Bogdewiecz, CEO of Wish of a Lifetime said via email.

An Elderly Wish survives on donations, gifts-in-kind, and the group's 澳门威尼斯人网上赌场 fundraising event, the Annual "Heart-to-Heart Ball" held each February. Wish requests typically come from family members and caregivers; strangely though, they don't come in very often.

查普曼说：“如果一个月能收到一份申请，我们就很幸运了。”
At Casa Blanca, as Rusk played along with the band, the grin obvious on his face, it was clear the group's 131st wish was another successful event.

"This is one more birthday for him," Chapman said, "Hopefully we've made it a very happy one."