Announcing This Year’s Health Hero Challenge Finalists

The Health Hero Challenge finalists are set for 2019. / Graphic by Meredith Getzfread

You, metro-area Philadelphians, have been wonderful.

From Memorial Day through early July, you nominated hundreds of worthy leaders and nonprofits in your community for inclusion in our Be Well Philly Health Hero Challenge, sponsored by Independence Blue Cross. In September, you read about our 10 impressive semifinalists and the organizations they represent and made your choice, day after day, voting for who you believed deserved to move on to the next round.

Now we’ve reached the final stage of this year’s Health Hero Challenge. Our three finalists are set. All we need you to do is help us out one more time and decide who will receive $15,000 — the largest Health Hero donation to date — for their charity of choice.

Here, then, are the (all-female!) contenders for the 2019 Health Hero Challenge:

• Amanda Piccirilli-Hall, the Southeast Pennsylvania ambassador and senior vice president of marketing for Ainsley’s Angels of America, a nonprofit that pairs able-bodied athletes with those with disabilities to help them compete in endurance races across the country. Watch her introduction video here.
• Caitlin Thompson, the creator of the Philly chapter of Little Bellas, a nonprofit that helps girls ages seven to 16 build self-confidence and realize their potential through mountain biking. Watch her introduction video here.
• Anne Wendell, the clinical director and oncofertility coordinator at Main Line Fertility and the founder of PreserveFertility.org, a nonprofit devoted to combating the costs of fertility preservation for cancer patients. Watch her introduction video here.

You have just two weeks to vote for your favorite to win the honor of Health Hero and, of course, that $15,000 reward for their nonprofit. (The two remaining finalists and their organizations will each receive $2,500.) Remember that you can vote once a day, every day, through November 15th at our Health Hero site. To sweeten the deal, we’re including the option to be entered to win a pair of tickets to next year’s Be Well Philly Boot Camp — our full day of fitness classes, nutrition demos, and wellness talks — each time you vote. We’ll notify the winner of the giveaway on November 18th, so mark your calendars for that day, too. And get to voting!