By Kim Constantinesco
Regardless of one’s age, there’s no limit to wishing upon a star.
That’s the philosophy that former World Champion/Olympic skier and former NFL player Jeremy Bloom honors.
Bloom, 32, has never paid much attention to societal boundaries. He was told he couldn’t be both a champion skier and a wide receiver in the NFL. The result? He stood atop the snow-covered course at the 2006 Turin Olympics, and then three days later, ran the 40-yard dash at the NFL Scouting Combine.
He was a three-time world champion in freestyle moguls, he won 11 World Cup events, he was an all-American football player at the University of Colorado, and he went on to get drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in the 5th round of the 2006 draft.
Bloom tore his hamstring, and spent time on injured reserve and on practice squads prior to playing in an actual NFL game, but that gave him the chance to game plan for his future away from athletics, at the Wharton School of Business. Today, the San Francisco resident applies the X’s and O’s to his company, Integrate, which helps others manage their advertising strategies across the vast board.
However, two years before Bloom was integrating marketing strategies, he started integrating hope into the lives of seniors.
Rooted in Respect
A Colorado native, Bloom was fortunate enough to grow up heavily influenced by his grandparents.
Bloom’s late grandfather taught him how to ski.
“My grandfather was my very first ski teacher at the age of 3, 4, and 5,” Bloom said. “Because I was the youngest of three, my mom, dad, brother, and sister would go and I couldn’t keep up on the slopes.”
Bloom’s 89-year-old grandmother, Donna Wheeler, was a coach off the snow.
“She had a lot of influence on just how I was raised,” Bloom said. “She was like a second mother to me. My mom and her share similar values. I think both of them were less focused on winning and accumulating, and more focused on what you can do to try to make the world a little bit better for people.”
Today, Wheeler lives in Keystone, Colorado.
“The funny thing is most people her age are moving to beach climates,” Bloom said. “I think it’s cool and unique that she lives at almost 10,000 feet. She drives through the snow to volunteer at the elementary school and also the senior center.”
She is the person that Bloom originally named his foundation after. Now called Wish of a Lifetime, Bloom has helped grant close to 1,000 lifelong wishes to seniors who have had to overcome tremendous challenges in their lives.
“I think the influence of my mother and my grandmother is one of the reasons why after athletics, I really wanted to do something to try and give back, and use the platform I’ve built in sports to try and help other people realize their dreams at a later stage in life,” Bloom said.
Being around seniors growing up and then making the U.S. Ski Team at 15 years old, helped Bloom appreciate what the older population has to offer.
One senior goes skydiving because of Wish of a Lifetime. Photo: WOL
“Through skiing, I started traveling around the world and getting dropped into these other cultures,” Bloom said. “One of the trends that I noticed along the way from Asia to Scandinavia was a difference that some of these cultures had in respecting and supporting the oldest people in their society. I remember one time in Japan, I was on a public bus, and an elderly lady walked on. People got out of their seats, grabbed her hand, helped her sit down, and then they bowed to her.”
Bloom explained that North America roots its values in celebrating youth. The media helps foster that fascination by promoting the popularity of young celebrities in pop culture.
“Unfortunately, we turn a blind eye and neglect the oldest people in our society,” Bloom said. “I think that’s wrong.”
Never Too Late
The second wish that Wish of a Lifetime ever granted was to Colorado resident, Bill Tiller. He was in his late 80’s at the time and was a very low income senior. Most of his family members had passed, so he was also a very isolated senior. He wrote in and said, “My wish of a lifetime is for a rug.”
“It was at a time when I started the organization and I still wasn’t sure what people at that stage of their life would be wishing for,” Bloom said. “I was also very focused on providing life-changing wishes. They had to be big in scope and scale. When I got that wish request, I thought, this isn’t big enough.”
Bill Tiller gets his rug. Photo: Wish of a Lifetime
Tiller went on to disclose that he wanted a rug because he had diabetes. Because of poor circulation, his feet would sting if he walked on his linoleum floors without slippers or socks. Wish of a Lifetime ended up buying him a few rugs.
“One of my most favorite photos we’ve taken is of Bill when we gave him the rugs,” Bloom said. “He has the biggest smile on his face and you would have thought that we gave him a check from Publisher’s Clearing House for $5 million. What it taught me is you don’t really know what’s meaningful, and trying to judge that is virtually impossible. I think more so than the rug, it’s just the idea that someone cared about him in society. He felt like people didn’t care about him.”
That’s just it. People want to feel cared about. They want to be acknowledged. It taps into the survivor part of the brain.
“It’s just going back to basics and reminding ourselves if it wasn’t for the oldest generation in our country, we wouldn’t be here,” Bloom said. “At the very least, we owe them a token of gratitude for helping us get into the world. They fought for us, they helped pave our roads, and they helped invent things like the cars we drive in. There’s no shortage of things that we use and enjoy today that they gave to us. I think it’s our duty to respect them for that.”
Bloom intends to keep fulfilling wishes for seniors throughout his life.
“I don’t want wishes to die,” Bloom said. “There’s a lot of people living in the world today that have always wanted to do or see someone in their life. They don’t have much time left and they don’t have a lot of resources left. When I look back on my life, it’s the experiences that stand out the most. It’s the relationships. It’s the people.”
Bloom’s father is a psychologist, so he’s been conditioned to be a deep thinker.
“I think as you approach different stages of life, your purpose changes,” Bloom said. “When I was in my 20’s, my purpose was athletics, and they defined almost everything for me including happiness. After that, I was able to realize that is it actually feels more fulfilling to change a small part of someone else’s life than it does to individually win a medal or a football game.”
