These unique series of challenges were created by Mercy Home’s education and career resources department and supported by our generous sponsors, the Chicago Bulls and Gallagher Insurance.
“This moment has actually been three years in the making,” said Liz Tomka, vice president of education and career resources at Mercy Home. “The Bulls had been so supportive of our Hoops to Homework program for many years… When Mercy Home was ready to host more programming and work with the Bulls again, we re-envisioned what the programming could be.”
This was intended to give the kids ideas of healthy activities that they could try and implement in their daily routines.
The Winter Wellness Challenge first kicked off last January where representatives from the Chicago Bulls entertained our kids while they got a chance to design their own custom sneakers.
Within all the engaging activities, nutrition was a key concept Mercy Home wanted to emphasize to our kids.
“[We wanted] to make [nutrition] fun and exploratory,” Quintero explained. “We had a brief cooking series and some challenges they could do that were pretty easy to tackle [and] then they could be eligible to win a prize.”
To celebrate our kids accomplishing their challenges and goals, they were awarded fun prizes.
“We wanted to make a lot of small incentives, so they didn’t feel overwhelmed by the amount of challenges we offered,” Quintero said. “As soon as you finished one bingo row, you were eligible for a new prize.”
The kids received many desirable prizes from the Chicago Bulls, such as team water bottles, autographed photos of players, and lots more. There was friendly competition among our young people to win and the challenges ignited a good sense of community and leadership at the Home.
“The first [Mercy Home residential] program prize was the cooking challenge with [the Chicago Bulls Nutritionist], Kristine Blank,” Quintero said. “The youth were really excited. They got super into it and were really competitive, but also encouraging. … A lot of good questions came out and a lot of fun healthy competition was had during that one.”
Other prizes included seeing a play at Chicago’s famed Steppenwolf Theatre and a chance to explore Lincoln Park. They also went to the Semi-Colon bookstore for a free shopping spree and did a painting extravaganza.
“[At the painting event], the youth were faced with a healthy challenge to explore meditation and mindfulness while painting self-portraits and expressing how they identify themselves,” Quintero said.
“I gained experience in different coping mechanisms,” Mia, a Mercy Home resident, said. “I never knew that going for a walk could be so peaceful or staying away from social media for an entire day [was possible]. That was definitely an experience I never had before. I felt a lot better than I usually do.”
The entire challenge wrapped up in early April with a trip to see a Chicago Bulls game, a fun way to conclude a season of learning and new experiences.
Of course, this entire event would not be possible without our supportive friends at the Chicago Bulls and Gallagher Insurance.
“The Bulls connected us with so many cool opportunities,” Tomka said.
“Gallagher supported this partnership with Mercy Home and the Bulls. They brought volunteers to some of the events and began a genuine partnership with the best interest of our youth in mind.”
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