2022 SPARK Challenge Partners Students with Community Organizations

The SPARK Social Innovation Challenge encourages students to closely examine issues affecting local communities and work with community partners toward making a tangible change. At least one student on each competing team participated in the Spring 2022 SPARK Challenge short course taught by Monty Roper, associate professor of anthropology.  The course pairs Grinnell organizations with students to address poverty-related challenges faced by the larger Grinnell community. The course culminates in the students presenting their projects to a panel of local judges who choose winning projects to receive funding support for the implementation of their solution.

Hana Imanishi ’25 took first place in the 2022 challenge for her idea to increase awareness of support services for Asian student victims of sexual assault. Cultural barriers are often the reason Asian international students show reluctance to use available campus resources following an incident. Imanishi’s community partner was the Center for Religion, Spirituality, and Social Justice. 

Second place was awarded to Keven Hernandez-Nuno ’22, along with partner Mayflower Community, for their solution to address social isolation in long-term care facilities through collaborative video games using motion-tracking gaming consoles. Concerned with the negative consequences that social isolation can have on senior citizens, they proposed a weekly program of facilitated active play for long-term care residents.

A proposal for a mobile app called EAT-n-WIN took third place in the contest. During the 2022–23 academic year, Shrey Agrawal ’24 and Youssef Farid ’25 will work on developing the app, which aims to incentivize students to reduce food waste in the dining hall. Grinnell College collaborations for this project included the Student Environmental Committee, Dining Services, and Information Technology Services, with Sustainability Committee Co-Chair Chris Bair leading as the core partner for continuity of the app. 

Awards are funded by the Wilson Center for Innovation and Leadership. The SPARK Challenge course has recently been offered once a year.