June 6 was the grand opening of Kendra's theater.

In Kendra Serakowski's house in Kennedy, a newly refinished basement features three theater chairs, purple bean bag chairs, a flat screen TV, a few dozen DVDs, several Wii games, a popcorn maker, a cooler and movie theater signs.

Kendra, 7, bounced on one of her new cushioned chairs and said the popcorn maker is her favorite feature.

The first Saturday in June, when her parents unveiled the new theater, she had seven friends sleep over. They ate cake and then watched a movie to celebrate the new room.

The home theater is a wish granted from the Make-A-Wish Foundation for Kendra, who has arteriovenous malformation, a condition more commonly known as AVM.

April and Jim Serakowski remember the day they knew something was wrong with their oldest daughter's health: Jan. 21 this year.

Mrs. Serakowski was working at Kindred Hospital in North Fayette and Mr. Serakowski was home with Kendra. Kendra started playing on the family's elliptical exercise machine, but suddenly got off and said her head was hurting.

She started vomiting, became lethargic and was disoriented. With no prompting, she started doing math problems aloud, saying she wanted to make sure her head was OK.

When her parents took her to a hospital, doctors performed a CT scan and discovered bleeding in Kendra's brain, on the left side of her cerebellum. AVMs are tangles of veins and arteries that can arise in many parts of the body. AVMs of the brain or spinal cord affect some 300,000 people in this country. They weaken vessels -- in Kendra's case, in her brain.

A gamma knife device pinpointed a high dose of radiation to stop the bleeding, but for the next three years, Kendra will undergo regular MRI checkups.

Kendra's aunt called Make-a-Wish, and in March, Dorothy Barkley, a volunteer with the wish-granting organization, stopped by Kendra's house. "With Kendra, there was no doubt what she wanted," she said. "She wanted a home theater."

Ms. Barkley, who has volunteered for the foundation for 10 years, started shopping for theater parts. The basement room was unfinished, and because Make-A-Wish does not do construction projects, Jim Serakowski and a friend did the renovations themselves.

To keep the room a surprise, Kendra was not allowed to go downstairs while the theater was being built.

On a recent Saturday, her parents; brother Drew, 5; relatives; friends; Ms. Barkley and another Make-A-Wish volunteer waited in the theater for Kendra to walk down the stairs.

"She was stunned," Ms. Barkley said. "She could not speak for quite awhile. It was exciting. It would make you cry if you were there."

Kendra finished second grade with straight As, her parents said, returning to school just three days after her gamma knife procedure. She cannot do physical activities for now, they said, and she's nervous about being bumped by other kids at school. But the school has been very accommodating.

Kendra said she's planning to have a lot more parties in her new theater this summer.

For more on Make-A-Wish, visit www.wish.org.