We’ve Chosen This Year’s Health Hero Challenge Semifinalists, and They’re a Pretty Amazing Group
...if we do say so ourselves. Vote today and help us choose three finalists.
We’re announcing this year’s Health Hero Challenge semifinalists. Voting for finalists opens today. / Graphic by Meredith Getzfread
Before your #shorebrainfog took over this summer, you kindly nominated hundreds of worthy candidates for this year’s Be Well Philly Health Hero Challenge. Truly, we wish we could dub all of them official Health Heroes. But, unfortunately, we have limited funds to work with, so we’ve got to narrow the field down.
It took weeks of working through nominations, but we’ve settled on 10 semifinalists who represent the diversity and innovation of Philadelphia’s health and wellness scene perhaps better than any other crop of candidates we’ve seen. Although they might stand behind different causes, they all have one singularly important characteristic in common: They care about the future of humanity.
I’m thrilled to announce this year’s Health Hero Challenge semifinalists and the corresponding charities they’re advocating for:
• Al Harris on behalf of Cancer Who? / Team OverTime
• Amanda Piccirilli-Hall on behalf of Ainsley’s Angels of America
• Anne Wendel on behalf of preservefertility.org
• Caitlin Thompson on behalf of Little Bellas
• Desiree Ivey on behalf of One Day at a Time
• Evan Figueroa-Vargas on behalf of Pathways to Housing PA
• Jenna Shersher on behalf of Twist Out Cancer
• Kristen de Marco on behalf of Gateway HorseWorks
• Lexi Campbell on behalf of Camp Cranium
• Michael Huggins on behalf of Transformation Yoga Project
Over the next month, we’re asking you to vote on which of these worthy semifinalists and organizations deserves to win this year’s Health Hero Challenge. Starting today, you can vote once a day, every day, until October 1st. Then we’ll tally up the votes and announce three finalists, all of whom will receive some money for their chosen charity. But the top three will continue to compete for the grand prize: $15,000, the largest donation we’ve ever given as part of the Health Hero Challenge.
But none of these noble folks’ charities can be eligible for that big payday unless they make it to the next round. So head to phillymag.com/health-hero-2019/ and start voting!
