Paid Off in Children’s Smiles

It was hard, make that impossible, to wipe the smile from 14-year-old Taneli Tenhunen’s face. Taneli, who uses a wheelchair, was having the time of his life in Southern California.

As one of 15 Finnish children on a weeklong tour, he has visited Beverly Hills, the J. Paul Getty Museum, Griffith Park and the Consul General of Finland’s house in Los Angeles. On Tuesday, he went to Disneyland.

But for Taneli, nothing compared to Sunday’s breakfast at the Yorba Linda home of Mighty Duck star forward Teemu Selanne.

“That was very big,” said Taneli, who has a blockage in his spinal cord. “There was no bigger highlight than meeting Teemu.”

For Sirpa Selanne, Teemu’s wife who has served as the tour’s host, every day has been a highlight.

“It’s such a pleasure to see all those kids and how happy and grateful they are,” Sirpa said. “When you do charity work and you see all those smiles, that’s your salary.”

At home in Finland during the off-season, the Selannes often visit children’s hospitals. They helped start the Finnish Flash Foundation, which supports sports programs for the physically disabled.

This week’s trip, called the “With All My Heart” charity project, had been planned for nearly a year. It is a collaborative effort of the Finnish Heart Assn., the Finnish Flash Foundation and the Finlandia Foundation--a nonprofit organization that promotes Finnish culture in the United States.

Taru Kinnunen of the Finlandia Foundation’s Boston chapter said she began thinking about the project last year, but wasn’t sure she wanted a celebrity to be involved.

“I’m very prejudiced toward celebrities,” said Kinnunen, a health psychologist at Harvard Medical School. “But Teemu has really won me over. I’ve seen him in situations where he might not give an autograph to an adult, but he would to a kid. You can see it comes from his heart.

“They have given their name and welcomed children into their house,” Kinnunen said. “Teemu is the biggest star in Finland. They didn’t have to do that. It’s not like they are seeking attention from all of this.”

Sirpa Selanne wants the attention on the 15 children. Five have congenital heart disease, another five have various kinds of physical disabilities, and the last group of five earned their ticket by winning an essay contest. They come from all over Finland, a country of 5 million people that is pretty dreary this time of year.

“It’s snowy and very cold over there now, there’s only about five hours of sunlight,” said Satu Lahteison, whose 11-year-old son, Leo, has heart disease. “This is like summer in Finland for us.”

Lahteison, one of 22 adults on the trip, said her son has seen not only a different side of the world, but also a different side of life.

“It’s good for Leo to be around other children with diseases, to see how they manage and to see he doesn’t have it so bad,” she said. “It’s also good for me to see how other mothers handle their kids.”

Said Sirpa Selanne, who has two children and a third on the way: “These kids are all so different and they don’t know each other, but they’ve gotten along so well. That’s been the biggest surprise.”

The most famous chaperon is former Los Angeles King and Mighty Duck star Jari Kurri, who flew with the group from Finland. Another chaperon is Paula Aalto, whose husband, Antti, is a center for the Ducks. A Finnish television crew and a Finnish newspaper reporter are documenting the trip.

Kinnunen said the journey wouldn’t have been possible without the help of the Finnish American community, which sponsored the trip by making tax deductible donations to the Finlandia Foundation. The Anaheim Doubletree hotel helped by giving the group reduced rates for the week, and Disneyland provided free day-long passes.

The tour concludes tonight with a visit to the Arrowhead Pond, where the children will watch Selanne and the Ducks play the defending Stanley Cup Champion Dallas Stars, who have Finnish stars Jere Lehtinen and Juha Lind on their roster.

“It was not a coincidence that we picked a game with four players from Finland in it,” Kinnunen said. “These kids love their hockey.”

They also know it pretty well. Taneli attended the Ducks’ 5-0 loss to Buffalo on Monday night and he wasn’t too impressed.

“That was a lousy game,” he said. “Nobody played very well. But they will play better against Dallas.”