A group of George Mason University Honors College students were awarded the Alumni Choice Award on December 5th for their excellence in creating a comprehensive quarterly newsletter for the local Community of Faith Food Pantry.
Lucas Courtemanche, Prabhath Gera, Daniel Horvath, and Anthony Perry conducted this semester-long project through the Hungry for Change class, in which collaborative groups address food scarcity through partnerships with local organizations through honors college partnership programs.
For the group, this issue was important to them. “We wanted to focus on how the economic trends are increasing food insecurity and food scarcity in Northern Virginia, especially since it hits so close to home for so many people here,” said group member Prabhath Gera. They were able to learn about the back end of non-profit work beyond volunteering: “It’s the holiday season, so they’re extremely busy, and we tried to find that balance while remaining helpful,” said former Schwartzstein Outstanding Student Award recipient Daniel Horvath, “And also, we were able to put in our own creative ideas.”
For the project, the students disentangled the Capital Area Food Bank Hunger Report, which is a dense, statistical document and clarified key ideas to create the newsletter for the Community of Faith Food Bank. Lucas Courtemanche said, "We truly are honored to help in any way we can.”