WS Chronicle

Last week, Herbalife Nutrition Foundation’s “Casa Herbalife” program unveiled a 12-foot mural at the Gateway YWCA’s Best Choice Center.

The colorful graffiti mural, which depicts the image of a young girl and boy of color beside the wording “Best Choice” in bright blue letters by artist Hugo Garcia, is a gift to the YWCA from the Herbalife Nutrition Foundation (HNF).

According to Garcia, the graffiti mural took almost an entire week to complete. Garcia, who is the senior designer for Herbalife, said he worked on the mural eight hours a day for four days straight to get everything done. He said when he first started working on the project, it was important that the children felt a connection to the mural when they looked at it.

“We wanted to make sure that the children in the painting reflected the children who come to the center. We wanted to make sure we represented their community and put their ideas into the mural,” said Garcia. “It’s actually a huge privilege knowing that I was one of those kids when I was growing up in Chicago, now I get to be a facilitator.”

Created in 1994 by Herbalife Founder Mark Hughes, the Herbalife Nutrition Foundation is a global nonprofit foundation dedicated to improving the lives of children around the world by helping provide access to good nutrition.

Marilyn Odom, who serves as the director of the Best Choice Center, said the partnership with Herbalife has been nothing short of amazing. She said, “What Herbalife has done has raised our profile in the community and they’ve given us so much needed assistance.

“We like to make sure our children have access to healthy fruits and vegetables, and with their emphasis on healthy eating, they have allowed us to do that,” Odom continued.

Since Herbalife Innovation & Manufacturing came to Winston-Salem in 2013, the company has forged a partnership with the Gateway YWCA. Along with the mural, the company and foundation have funded renovations at the Best Choice Center, healthy snacks for students and summer field trips.

Before the big unveiling on Wednesday, Sept. 5, Jenny Perez, executive director of the Herbalife Nutrition Foundation, said the partnership with the YWCA is important because it gives them an opportunity to give back to the communities they’re in. And the Best Choice Center gives them the opportunity to do just that.

“We found this wonderful organization through one of our contacts and decided it would be a great opportunity for us to help with the nutrition program here at Best Choice,” continued Perez. “… I think what’s great is that you get a lot of the employees who come here and volunteer, so you have that built in community, which is really great.”