Congratulations to Our Take The Challenge™ Essay Contest Grand Prize Winner and Monthly Winners!

Together with founding sponsor, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, we are pleased to announce our $250,000 Grand prize winner...

Vicente Adame From Bloomington, IL.

We are pleased to announce that Vicente Adame's essay was selected as the Grand Prize Take the Challenge™ contest winner. Vicente lives in Bloomington, IL with his wife, Jennifer, and two children. As the Grand Prize winner Vicente will receive up to $250,000, after taxes, to be used towards the purchase of a home.

Vicente's entry was one of over 21,000 unique home purchase stories received from people across the country. Each entry illustrates the mission of The Great American Homeowner Challenge™ to build lifelong financial security through homeownership.

Congratulations to Vicente and all Take The Challege™ contest entrants!

Vicente Adame's winning essay:

When I was a child, I was a dreamer and was fully determined to make something of my life, but I could not have imagined the dream my life would become-a dream that began when I made the decision to buy my first home. You see, I was born 34 years ago in a one-room, dirt floor house in a rural village of Mexico. Without plumbing or electricity, we bathed, cleaned clothes and washed dishes in a small creek nearby.

At 16, I was brought to live with family in the United States, where I attended school and learned English. Although I worked very hard and excelled in my job, I had very little to show for my money.

I took a life turning step that set my dreams in motion when I bought a simple bungalow. At the time, it didn't seem like a major decision; I simply didn't want to pay rent any longer. However, the freedom I felt was something I wanted to share with the world. As equity built up, I used it to buy a home for my mother, and another for my brother the year after that. This was amazing! I then purchased a commercial property. With the rents received, I've invested in four additional properties.

Five years after purchasing my first small home, I moved to a beautiful, 4-bedroom Victorian on a street straight out of a story book.

Last year, I became a realtor, the only Spanish-speaking realtor in our area because I enjoy nothing more than to help others find the life-changing freedom in owning their own home. I try to imagine going back in time to tell the 7 year old at work in the fields that some day he would own a big beautiful dream home, and that his children would go to school and play without ever worrying about their family's finances. That determined little boy would have laughed at the fairytale I was telling him. Then, he would have gone back to work to make that dream come true.

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