Keenan is 34 years old and battling Stage 4 breast cancer with faith, hope and a charity called the Dream Foundation, which helps terminally ill adults.
''You get a diagnosis and you never know how short your time is," Keenan said. "I chose to believe there is going to be a cure. You still carry those dreams of getting married, having a kid."
But Keenan and her fiancé, Curtis Jimenez, couldn't afford a wedding -- their finances are sapped by her cancer battle. They rent from friends.
Keenan wrote a letter to Dream Foundation, at the suggestion of her devoted nurses at the Santa Barbara cancer center. "It all just started snowballing," she said.
Her wish has been granted, thanks to Dream Foundation and flock of people she has never met. Think of the foundation as Make-A-Wish, but instead of trying to help desperately sick children, Dream Foundation assists terminally ill adults.
Keenan's wedding is a different, more lavish wish than most of the requests the foundation has been receiving in this tough economy.
"People's needs are becoming basic," said the charity's founder, Thomas Rollerson. "We are getting wishes just to pay an electric bill, pay the rent, or help keep a promise to go to Disneyland to give them that memory in a time of hopelessness, doctors visits and uncertainty."
Other dreams are simply for dying family members to be united with loved ones, last visits before last rites.
Rollerson explains that with money tight, donors can still help without writing big checks. For example, people can donate frequent flier miles or hotel points.
When corporate donors and philanthropists jump in, a Dream Foundation wish can turn elaborate. The foundation's Web site is a bulletin board of heartache looking for relief.
