Associated Colleges of Illinois (ACI) is pleased to announce that Call One, a Chicago-based business technology company, provided $50,000 for scholarships through its "Call One Future Innovator Scholarships" program in partnership with ACI.

Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017 – The Chicago Charity Challenge, a Chicago- based nonprofit announced the 2016 winners at their annual awards ceremony on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2017. Inspired by Call One employees' dedication to community service, the Charity Challenge was created to motivate other corporate groups to work together on behalf of those in need.

I was extremely skeptical of “Madonna” sightings until 2005. But Easter Week of that year a figure of the Virgin Mary appeared under the overpass at Fullerton Avenue and the Kennedy Expressway—the exit for Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago. My daughter, Sarah, who had an extremely severe case of acute viral myocarditis, was dying with little hope of recovery. Yet, as the figure of the Madonna became more visible between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, Sarah began her miraculous recovery.
 
My skepticism certainly hasn’t disappeared but it’s waned. That sign, exactly where it was and how it became more visible in proportion to Sarah’s recovery, inspired my belief in a relationship between the “Madonna of Fullerton Avenue” and Sarah’s recovery.

Connecting Relationships

Today I was privileged to attend the Chicago Charity Challenge Award ceremony. What the Cha Cha (as the Challenge is affectionately known) teams were able to accomplish this year is simply amazing. Double the dollars and hours from last year, totaling an amazing 14 million dollars and 46,000 volunteer hours!

As I listened to the award winning teams of charities and Chicago businesses describe the impact they’ve made here in our community, it wasn’t the dollars or hours—as impressive as those are—that hit me. What struck me was something even more important that the challenge has achieved: creating and building “connecting relationships.” What are “connecting relationships”? They are the deep, personal relationships between individuals formed through mutual trust and respect, coming together to achieve a common purpose. Whether it was Mesirow Financial engaging personally with residents of the Brighton Park community to help achieve a better Chicago or rookie participants Astellas and Deloitte who worked, respectively with Have Dreams and the Anixter Center to personally engage with individuals with challenges to provide opportunity or just companionship. The common theme through it all was connecting relationships, and what makes these connecting relationship particularly compelling is that the benefit was two way—benefitting both the corporate and charity participants.

The ability to be a part of these connecting relationships is the one thing I love most about the privilege of working at Call One. Every day, we form and foster those connecting relationships with our customers, and our employees. It’s not just about delivering products that meet our customers’ needs or providing a great employment environment and great benefits for our employees. It’s about the connecting relationships we form on an individual and personal level with our customers, and with each other at Call One, that makes the difference, just like the connecting relationships the Cha Cha teams have formed that make Chicago such an exceptional place to live and work.

Congratulations again, to all of the 2015 Cha Cha teams and sponsors, for all of the connecting relationships you have formed and continue to grow. And, thank you, Call One employees not only for your sponsorship and support of the Cha Cha, as well as the connecting relationships you form with our customers, but also for the connecting relationships we’ve formed and continue to grow here at Call One.