Educate to Empower
2024 President’s Engagement Prize winners Simran Rajpal and Gauthami Moorkanat are working to identify and dismantle barriers to breast cancer screenings in populations that may not be adequately reached by existing interventions.
Projects & Profiles
Winners of the President’s Engagement Prize have demonstrated extraordinary commitment to local, national, and global engagement. In selecting winners, the President meticulously examines each project’s potential impact as well as the strength of the applicant’s commitment to engagement.
2024 Projects
Presby Addiction Care Program
With the President’s Engagement Prize, Anooshey Ikhlas, Brianna Aguilar, and Catherine Hood are implementing a volunteer program to address challenges encountered by individuals with substance use disorders during hospitalization.
2023 Projects
Communities for Childbirth
President Engagement Prize winner and fourth-year Seungwon ‘Lucy’ Lee is creating a coordinated referral system of first responders, emergency dispatchers, and systemized hospital networks to improve emergency maternal health care in Uganda.
Act First
Kenneth Pham and Catherine Chang, winners of the 2023 President’s Engagement Prize, will teach Philadelphia high school students CPR, Narcan administration, and blood loss prevention.
2022 Projects
College Green Ventures
College Green Ventures aims to be a centralized hub for supporting student social entrepreneurs and creating more of them.
Cosmic Writers
Cosmic Writers provides equitable opportunities for free creative writing education to K-12 students across the United States, available regardless of socioeconomic background.
The Community Grocer
An inaugural recipient of the President’s Sustainability Prize, a sub-category of the President’s Engagement Prize, The Community Grocer is a Philadelphia-based nonprofit organization reimagining nutritional assistance to promote health equity and fight food insecurity.
2021 Projects
Project HOPE
Project HOPE is addressing the lack of legal and reentry support to incarcerated Philadelphians by serving as the core of an expansive advocacy network.
Maji
Maji is installing a solar-powered water tank for both household use and for irrigation in the Olua I settlement camp in Uganda, as well as offering hands-on agricultural training and first aid medical training to refugees.
Body Empowerment Project
The Body Empowerment Project addresses eating disorder risk among Philadelphia high school students by implementing a validated body-positivity curriculum and an innovative near-peer mentorship model.
2020 Projects
Aarogya
Aarogya, a social-enterprise nonprofit created by three President’s Engagement Prize winners and graduating seniors, will bring affordable medicines to low-income people living in India.
The Unscripted Project
Using the President’s Engagement Prize, seniors Philip Chen and Meera Menon will create a nonprofit to bring improv training to Philadelphia public schools.
Collective Climb
With the President’s Engagement Prize, seniors Hyungtae Kim, Kwaku Owusu, and Mckayla Warwick will work to combat poverty in West Philadelphia through education, shared resources, and community collaboration.
2019 Projects
Rebound Liberia
Princess Aghayere (C'19), Summer Kollie (C'19), Oladunni Alomaja (EAS'19)
Aghayere, Kollie, and Alomaja are using basketball as a tool to bridge the literacy gap between men and women and as a mechanism for youth to cope with the trauma and stress of daily life in post-conflict Liberia.
Host Homes for LGBTQ Youth in Philadelphia
Brendan Taliaferro (C'19)
Taliaferro’s project is addressing a dire need for safe and stable emergency housing for LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness in Philadelphia by creating a host homes program.
Cultivando Juntos (Cultivating Together)
José Á. Maciel (Nu'19) and Antonio E. Renteria (Nu'19)
Maciel and Renteria are pioneering a community-based curriculum in the agricultural workplaces of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.
2018 Projects
Chicago Furniture Bank
Griffin Amdur (W'18), James McPhail (C'18, W'18), and Andrew Witherspoon (W'18)
Amdur, McPhail, and Witherspoon are collecting gently used furniture from the elderly and giving those donations to vulnerable populations in the Chicago metropolitan area, including women and children facing domestic violence, recovering addicts and the formerly homeless.
Healthy Pequeños
Alaina Hall (Nu'18)
Hall’s nonprofit project is a nurse-led multi-interventional health-promotion effort that aims to address the global health problem of infectious disease in children. Working in partnership with the Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos orphanage in Miacatlán, Mexico, Hall will work to improve health education for children and their caregivers.
rePurpose
Peter Wang Hjemdahl (W'18) and Svanika Balasubramanian (W'18)
With the President’s Engagement Prize, Wharton graduates Peter Wang Hjemdahl and Svanika Balasubramanian will boost wages for low-income workers while simultaneously diverting thousands of tons of waste from landfills.
2017 Projects
Homeless Health and Nursing
Marcus Henderson (Nu'17) and Ian McCurry (Nu'17)
Henderson and McCurry are integrating innovative healthcare case management into the current program of homeless services offered by the Bethesda Project, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit that provides proactive case management and housing services to the homeless population.
Lanzando Líderes (Launching Leaders)
Yaneli Arizmendi (Nu'17), Alexa Salas (C'17) and Camilo Toro (C'17)
Lanzando Líderes (Launching Leaders) is an afterschool youth leadership development program for Latino high school students. The program equips students with the knowledge and skills to become leaders in their own lives and in their communities.
Project Y.V.E.T.A.: Youth for Vocational Education and Training in Agriculture
Antoinette Zoumanigui (C'17) and Selamawit Bekele (C'17)
Zoumanigui and Bekele are spearheading Project Y.V.E.T.A., Youth for Vocational Education and Training in Agriculture, a school that will empower the marginalized youth of Senegal called Talibés.
2016 Projects
Coming Home to Continued Care
Kriya Patel (C'16)
Patel is helping women about to be released from Riverside Correctional Facility, an all-female facility in Philadelphia, apply for and secure health insurance and identification prior to release.
Reaching HEALthy
Melanie Mariano (Nu'16)
Mariano is partnering with the Free Library of Philadelphia to assist library patrons in obtaining health information, medical counseling, and preventive health services.
NESARA Agriculture Extension
Vaishak Kumar (C'16)
Kumar is utilizing cost-efficient technology and novel research to help farmers in India boost their productivity. He is using mobile technology to improve farmer education in India.
2015 Projects
Tarkwa Breman School
Shadrack Frimpong (C’15)
Frimpong is establishing the Tarkwa Breman Model School for Girls and Community Clinic in his poverty-stricken home village of Tarkwa Breman, Ghana. The school and clinic will also serve citizens in the surrounding seven villages.
Home, Heart, Health
Jodi Feinberg (Nu’15)
Feinberg is designing, implementing, and evaluating a comprehensive cardiac rehabilitation model for home care, with the support of the New York University Langone Medical Center and the Visiting Nurse Service of New York.
Everwaters
Adrian Lievano (EAS’15) and Matthew Lisle (EAS’15)
Lievano and Lisle are developing and implementing Everwaters, a rainwater catchment and purification system and Kimana, Kenya. Once they install the system, Lievano and Lisle will engage the Kimana community through ongoing support and education.
GenHERation
Katlyn Grasso (W'15)
Grasso is using the President’s Engagement Prize to further her work with GenHERation, a national female empowerment network for high-school girls. GenHERation works to positively impact girls’ confidence and personal development.