Dream comes true for Lombard teen with help of Make-A-Wish
Friends, family and cookie lovers filled the cafeteria at Montini Catholic High School in Lombard Sunday to support a new business launched by a sophomore at the school.
And for 16-year-old Neysa Bianco, starting Cookies & Crumbs will be a piece of cake, or cookie, compared to what she’s been going through.
Neysa was born with tuberous sclerosis complex, a rare genetic disease that causes noncancerous tumors to grow in the brain and on other vital organs. The disease has caused her to suffer from seizures that, while controllable when she was younger, became more frequent starting in 2019.
Through it all, she’s baked cookies with her mom, Marisa, using a recipe her mom developed when she was Neysa’s age. It sparked a dream of opening a bakery and selling the treats that have helped her through the toughest times, including multiple surgeries this summer.
That dream came true Sunday with the help of the Make-A-Wish foundation.
“It just warms my heart that I can pass something I love and get so much joy out of on to my daughter and she could take and spread joy to the world, because cookies are little morsels of joy,” Marisa Bianco said as she thanked the crowd that turned out for the launch.
Though Neysa has had the condition since birth, it had gotten much worse in the last five years, sometimes causing multiple seizures a day, her mom said.
“I was on pins and needles all the time,” Marisa Bianco said, not knowing when a seizure would happen and if someone would be there to help.
Following multiple brain surgeries this summer, Neysa’s been seizure free for 3⅟₂ months.
Neysa said school had gotten tougher for her before the surgeries.
“I was so happy they took one of the tumors out, I felt like my Bluetooth signal was back on,” she said.
Neysa worked with Make-A-Wish for more than a year to start the business. She baked hundreds of cookies for people to try Sunday and the business took orders that she’ll start filling soon.
“Once you start eating them, you can’t really stop. They’re very addicting,” she said. “There’s a secret ingredient in there that makes them so good but I can’t tell you the answer.”
Sloan McHugh, a social media specialist with Make-A-Wish, said if anything, Neysa is being humble about her cookies.
“They are some of the best cookies I’ve ever had in my life,” she said. “It was great. Every time I went to work with them they sent me home with a nice box of cookies, and they were all amazing.”
You can check out Cookies & Crumbs on Instagram at instagram.com/cookiesandcrumbsil/ and place orders at cookiesandcrumbsil.squarespace.com/.