Can’t beat the Holiday Rush (University Medical Center)!

As long as anyone can remember, the Finance Team at Rush University Medical Center have had an amazing annual tradition: an internal holiday giving drive that starts nearly at Labor Day and extends all the way through December, featuring weekly fundraisers as varied as chili cook-offs to raffles to food truck days. Each year the team selects a different community organization each year as the beneficiary of all their work, and BUILD was deeply honored to be their 2019 choice!

Jeff Shipley and the Rush Finance Holiday Service Event Committee contacted us to ask what our greatest needs were, and set about making holiday miracles.

* 150 coats for 150 specific young people in our programs, matching all requested sizes and styles.

* 50 Gingerbread House Kits for our annual BUILD Holiday Giving Party, where donors come together to fulfill family wish lists, and BUILD youth outdo themselves in an outrageous Gingerbread House Decorating Contest. (They even brought extra candy for decorating!)

* Easels, bikes, and other toys for our after-school programs – and even as they were leaving with an empty van, the team insisted they were still working on donating additional art supplies if they could.

All of us at BUILD are so grateful to Rush Finance Holiday Service Event Committee for their support and enthusiasm – and for making a real difference to over 200 youth this winter. And even after helping organize and tag all the coats, the team stayed an extra hour to meet our staff and program leads, tour our building, sign up as volunteers, visit our art studio team, and more. We are honored to have them as community partners, and we look forward to seeing them at events throughout the year! We are truly counting our blessings that #TeamHolidayRUSH joined the BUILD family this year.  They provided  – Thanks to #HolidayRUSH, more than 150 BUILD youth in need are getting new coats, hats and gloves this winter.