Anyone who reads the Sedona Red Rock News has surely noticed the Sedona Wish List, which has graced the paper’s pages each Wednesday for the last several years.

In theory, the organization is a simple list of wishes, providing nearly 100 local community-minded organizations — secular nonprofits — a way to ask for necessary goods, services, funding, volunteers and more.

In effect, however, it is a great deal more complicated, making Sedona Wish List Director Astara Fisher a broker for a variety of charitable deals.

“Picture this,” she stated. “Tools or vehicles, given away instead of left to clutter the garage. A helping hand or two showing up for a weekend planting project or an ongoing commitment at the same time each week. Someone who knows social media well enough to fly to the rescue of an organization with a too-low profile. Or another anonymous someone who likes to drive behind the wheel, delivering food to shut-ins. And hard cash or gift cards trickling in to buy school supplies or sundries for the elderly.”

It is a massive undertaking, Fisher admitted: “This is just a small snapshot of what the huge web of connections looks like out in the community, thanks to Sedona Wish List …. Every person is just one or two or perhaps three steps removed from getting what they want or finding the solution to their every need. It may seem strange that we really just have to reach out to ask for what we want to get it, but it is true.”

Fisher, an experienced fundraiser for United Way, has been director of the list since the middle of 2014 and spends “at least 10 to 15 hours a week to sustain this civic project, calling and visiting member organizations, motivating them with weekly updates, attending meetings and introducing their efforts to the wider community through the newspaper column I write.”

According to Fisher, Barbara Vickers, who founded Wish List, also maintains an active role.

To read the full story, see the Friday, April 3, edition of the Sedona Red Rock News.