WishWell Campaign for Kansas Health Foundation

Background

It started with a simple question: Imagine someone you know who is currently struggling to make ends meet. Now imagine their life five years from now if their financial situation had improved. What would be different?

In April 2025, the Kansas Health Foundation sought out Gardner Design with a unique project: they wanted to launch an upward mobility crowdsourcing campaign beginning with Wichita’s newest and largest music festival, Somewhere Fest, that would run through the end of the year.

The goal? Sourcing at least 200 interviews during the two-day festival to better understand what is truly affecting Kansans across the state. Gardner Design immediately began brainstorming ways to meet the objective while still fitting into the overall vibe and visual feel of Somewhere Fest.

First order of business: finding the perfect artist.

Fitting Into the Fest

Somewhere Fest & Conference is an annual event in Wichita that brings both musical artists and creative artists together to downtown Wichita for a two-day celebration of the arts and social change. The festival transforms downtown Wichita by way of old shipping containers tagged by local graffiti artists to create new spaces where people can gather for music, food, and art.

As partners in the event, the Kansas Health Foundation had six shipping containers to use for their crowdsourcing display. We needed to find a way to not only capitalize on their functionality but also to create an attention-grabbing spectacle that would draw people in.

Renowned muralist HOXXOH was the answer!

Miami-based contemporary artist Douglas Hoekzema (HOXXOH) is recognized for his beautiful murals featured worldwide and for his innovative ways of creating them. Gardner Design knew he’d be perfect for the job.

Using Rain Bird sprinklers, he created intricate patterns on the shipping containers that made them a frequent photo op for festival-goers that drew people in to learn more.

The WishWell Campaign

After the containers were ready to go, the true campaign work began. Guided by the initial question and main objective, the Kansas Health Foundation needed some kind of activity to entice people to engage with and contribute to the crowdsourcing initiative.

Gardner Design’s idea: what if we turned some of the containers into wishing booths? With the help of Youngman Design for both nomenclature and visuals, the campaign became known as WishWell, genius both in reference to a physical wishing well and the concept of wishing someone well, which became the central theme that drove the rest of the visuals and activities forward.

How It Worked

Visitors to the site could enter into a custom-designed booth, receive the question, and then answer on video. The Kansas Health Foundation would review all the video responses later to document the results. After recording their answer, participants received another incentive: free t-shirts, of course!

Gardner Design partnered with Goodwill Industries to take old, unwanted t-shirts and transform them into new designs for a second life. These t-shirts were screen printed with the new WishWell identity and were used both as decoration within the display and also given away as rewards for submitting a wish within one of the wishing booths. Visitors who had submitted a wish could take a ticket to one of the t-shirt stations and were given an option between three reused t-shirts, each one unique with their combination of existing graphics and new WishWell branding.

The Results

Over the course of two afternoons at the festival, the Kansas Health Foundation drew in over 420 unique visitors to the site to participate, more than doubling their initial goal of 200 participants.

Besides using the information they pulled from these interviews for their upward mobility crowdsourcing initiative, they were also able to educate visitors on who the Kansas Health Foundation is and how they contribute to the overall wellness and health of Kansans across the state.

With its initial success and the ability to take part of this show on the road, the Kansas Health Foundation is more excited than ever to talk with people about how they can best help Kansans have the opportunity to succeed, regardless of their starting point in life.