Seattle makes a wish, or 30,000, at the Capitol Hill Wishing Tree

“I want to be rich and own a mansion and have (three) dogs.” 

“To find the right path that makes me happy and fulfilled.”

“I wish for deep belly laughter for a lifetime (for everyone too).” 

People ask the Capitol Hill Wishing Tree for everything from wealth to prosperity to fertility to world peace.

The gargantuan, centenarian cypress lives in Jane and Andrew Hamel’s yard. A bamboo rod structure, home to thousands of manila tags, hangs gallantly off a branch that hovers over the sidewalk. The structure sways in the wind and makes a crinkly sound as the cardstock and ribbons rub against each other.

Hamel converted the tree in her front lawn into a wishing tree in late 2013. Since then, people have cast at least 30,000 wishes. Thousands more will join as visitors flock to the tree during the warmer months.

On a cloudy day in March, 6-year-old Alice Brodzinski beamed as she scribbled her wish on a cardstock tag. She hoped to see a mermaid and a pudding flood.

“I’ve always wanted to meet a mermaid,” Alice exclaimed, wearing red rain boots and a blue jacket. As for the pudding, she wants every flavor.

Some people wish for their loved ones to be addiction-free. Others hope to be cancer-free. Finding community and building relationships are common wishes.

“We often all wish for the same things,” Hamel said. “I feel like (the tree is) a great equalizer.”

“Space to open their hearts”

After seeing a wishing tree while visiting a friend in San Francisco around 2011, Hamel decided to start her own. 

Two years later she left California for her husband Andrew’s job, moving into a 19th-century home off East Galer Street and 21st Avenue East in an affluent part of Capitol Hill. She says the neighborhood of gated properties felt a little uninviting. 

“I thought, ‘Well, what if I put in some pretty trees and flowers and created a space and put a little table down there, and that gave people a space to open their hearts?’ ” Hamel said.

Thousands of wishes later, the Capitol Hill Wishing Tree is a tourist attraction featured in several travel books. It has a Google Maps page. Students on field trips frequently visit the tree.

“I love the idea of creating a little bit of magic for people,” Hamel said. “When I was younger, I needed some magic, and I wanted to create that space for others.”

Hamel, an artist, has lived in 17 states and four countries. 

Wishing trees date back to ancient Japanese, Scottish and Irish traditions, according to Canopy, an environmental nonprofit based in the Bay Area. In the U.S., famed artist Yoko Ono created a “wish tree” installation at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. 

Other wishing trees dot the Pacific Northwest, including in Hillsboro and Portland. 

To many on Capitol Hill, the tree symbolizes human connection. For Hamel, it’s a space for vulnerability. 

“If you can create something that lets people feel better about themselves and about the world they live in, and lets them touch the place in their heart where they care the most, and they’re not doing and making and earning — they’re just in their heart,” Hamel said. “In our culture, I think that’s kind of some kind of magic.”

“Brought the community together”

You may think the technique is simple: make a wish and then it goes on the tree. In reality, a wish is just the first step of a whole operation.

Wishers grab a blank tag and a Sharpie at a metal table flanked by log stools. 

After jotting down their desires, wishers place the tags in the small gold container, where volunteers later process them in Hamel’s home. They’re then hung. 

Hamel spends about 20 hours a week on the project. She handled most of the work alone until someone vandalized the tree in 2023. 

Hamel was lying in bed on a warm July night when she heard a crash outside. Vandals had destroyed the bamboo structure. She remembers thousands of wishes lying in the street. She said it was “devastating.”

Afterward, she asked for help and now has a handful of volunteers on standby. 

Several are neighborhood kids like 11-year-old Lulu Mazwi and her 9-year-old sister, Annika, who moved into the neighborhood last year. Margaret Pak Enslow and her daughter Nora, 10, help process wishes a few times a week.

“I think it’s really cool that there’s a wishing tree in my community,” Nora said.

Sometimes, Lulu and Annika help Nora laminate wishes at her house. Lulu said her family once took a box of wishes to process while waiting for the ferry. 

“I think it’s just a really cool opportunity,” Lulu said. “There’s wishes in all different languages from people all over the world.”

Neighbors Eunhee Sumner and her daughter Alex, 14, began volunteering last summer when Hamel needed someone to care for the tree while she was out of town. Eunhee Sumner thinks the tree gives her children a broader worldview.

“We’re very lucky to have Jane start this because it was like one idea, and it was very sweet, but now it’s grown and really brought the community together,” Eunhee Sumner said.

“I give it back to the tree”

Processing the wishes takes a lot of time, ribbon and lamination. 

Last month, Eunhee, Alex, Nora and a few other volunteers gathered to process a slew of wishes in an assembly line in Hamel’s dining room.

Nora started by photographing three handwritten wishes on ornate fabric. She moved to the laminator. She slid the sheet through the machine several times, ensuring no air bubbles. She three-hole-punched the laminated sheet, then cut out the wishes and threaded each with a pink ribbon.

“Wishing Baby V health, love and happiness all her life,” read the wish Nora held in her hand.

Once the wishes are ready, volunteers place them in a white vase to be hung.

After processing wishes, Hamel and a gaggle of children will occasionally head down to the tree for “pruning.” With scissors and white laundry baskets in hand, they trim wish branches off the tree, so the new ones have room to hang.

“My goal in the process of laying all the wishes out, taking the photographs and laminating them … to just say a little prayer, like, ‘Spirit, whatever this person needs, can you help them?’ ” Hamel said. “They’ve made an effort to open their heart, to write this down, to give it to me, to give it to you, and I give it back to the tree.”

While the wishes may not live on the tree forever, Hamel keeps every wish people have written. She has a collection of 30,000 to 40,000 in her basement. Hamel doesn’t have a clear answer on why she keeps every wish. Maybe one day, she said, she’ll create an art installation with them. 

An old iPad box holds over 100 of the wishes. They sit upright in single-file lines waiting to be picked up and read.

Hamel has thought about creating other wishing trees in Seattle or maybe launching a digital wishing tree. But there’s something special about putting a wish in writing by hand, in a physical space. And this project already spreads her time thin.

“I don’t know how much more of me there is to go around,” Hamel said. “And especially as it continues. It was a simple little project that’s kind of blown up. It means a lot to a lot of people. And so I want to keep it going.” 

To visit the tree, stop by East Galer Street and 21st Avenue East.