Disney characters visit patients at Chicago children’s hospital<\/a><\/p>\n“We’ve come so far. I’m so proud,” father Victor Nevarez said.<\/p>\n
The surprise of a lifetime came about after producers of the Disney Holiday Special learned about how Nevarez’s mother successfully advocated for an all-access playground in the family’s town of north suburban Mundelein.<\/p>\n
For over 40 years, the TV show has highlighted people making a difference in their communities.<\/p>\n
“I was amazed by the parents and Alex doing all that they can for him,” said Stephanie Ridenour, a Disney Holiday Special senior producer.<\/p>\n
Despite his physical challenges, Nevarez is a very active 7-year old who loves playing both wheelchair sports and spending time with his cousins, their dad and his grandmother who are all going on the trip, too.<\/p>\n
“He’s my hero. He’s my hero. He showed me a lot; he’s been showing me a lot. Nothing is impossible in his world,” uncle Gabriel Nevarez said.<\/p>\n
Two other families will also be highlighted during the show and gifted travel to a Disney-owned property.<\/p>\n
Nevarez and his family will travel to the resort in two weeks.<\/p>\n
The Walt Disney Co. is the parent company of this ABC station.<\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a9 2025 WLS-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO (WLS) — A local boy got the holiday surprise of a lifetime at the Griffin Museum of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":397436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[188403,960,5386,1818],"class_list":{"0":"post-397435","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-188403","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-illinois"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115594694958039618","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}