2016-17 Odyssey Angels

Hope Heroes

This year’s winning Odyssey Angels team was Hope Heroes from Monterrey, Mexico. Their project centered on helping residents of a local retirement home. Not only did the team spend a lot of important quality time at the residence, they also re-designed and built popular board games with disabilities in mind. They picked their favorite games and made them shorter, simpler to play, and even built new game pieces so that they were larger and easier to see and hold. By making the games more accessible to the seniors, Hope Heroes could spend time playing games and making connections with people that most needed it in their community.
    Their creative problem-solving skills helped them to improve the quality of life and connection with those in the community that need it most. “By making regular games easier to play, playtime was increased and more enjoyable. It also made using the games less frustrating.”
    “As a team, we felt really good. The sense of accomplishment and making the seniors happy overwhelmed us. We were able to spend a longer time with the residents playing games and in the end, it was that communication and sense of belonging that is needed between people and generations,” said Miranda Sada and her team of Angels.
    Hope Heroes went on to make more of their re-imagined game sets and sent them to other places in need including assisted living homes and a pediatric oncology unit. These games helped to bring joy to those who most need it, aligning with the group’s slogan, “Happiness creates Hope, and Hope goes a long way...”   
    The Odyssey Angels members agree that being a part of Odyssey of the Mind helped them to creatively find this solution, “We were able to make our own decisions in making a difference. We could use our creativity without boundaries to reach out and get things done in our own unique way.”
      They continued to inspire others to join the program by saying, “We definitely recommend it to all. It is an AMAZING experience.You get a sense of how the world works and what you can do to try and fix things…or at least make something better for that one person. If we all focused on helping small and locally, big changes are bound to follow. Everyone must look around them and find a need in their community.”