Get Herald RSSWhen all the finalists had finished giving their presentations and JPMorgan announced the winner, Emma Clippinger '09 burst into tears in a room full of dark-suited investment bankers. Her organization, Gardens for Health International, had been selected to receive a $25,000 donation.
"I thought it was a shot in the dark," Clippinger said. She and the other finalists each gave a 20-minute presentation on their business models, and then JPMorgan judges announced the winners - in reverse order, which Clippinger described as resembling American Idol - until they finally reached her organization.
GHI was selected in January as the best initiative out of 101 undergraduate projects in consideration for the firm's second annual Good Venture Undergraduate Competition, according to a company statement.
Clippinger said she plans on using the grant to expand GHI's garden project for HIV-positive Rwandans by developing the new land donated to the organization by the Rwandan government last year.
Clippinger, along with Emily Morell, a student at Yale, saw that drug treatment for HIV/AIDS patients was ineffective without proper nutrition. The organization helps alleviate this problem by creating cooperative gardens to grow nutrient-rich food for HIV-positive Rwandans. GHI provides education, training and nutritional advice HIV/AIDS patients in Africa's most densely populated country, said Clippinger.
The two founded GHI in August 2006 while working as interns for the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative in Rwanda.
The organization has raised $53,000 to date prior to this latest award, and now employs three full-time agronomists that assist with the creation of new gardens. GHI works in partnership with the Rwandan Network for People Living with HIV/AIDS, which handles most of the on-the-ground logistics.
Clippinger and Morell, along with Julie Carney and Hai-in-Lim, also students at Yale and the other two members of the presentation team, have been working on numerous grant applications and fundraising efforts over the past year.
Clippinger was in Mali over winter break when she received notification that the organization had been selected as one of the top 10 finalists for the competition. JPMorgan covered her travel expenses to New York in order to give a 20-minute presentation on the organization in preparation for their final selection.
The competition is part of the firm's new promotion of corporate social responsibility, according to the firm's Web site. Rather than spending on traditional give-aways like yo-yos and frisbees, the company makes donations to non-profits chosen by undergraduate students through the firm's Web site.
As part of this "Give-It-Away" program, GHI could receive an additional $30,000 if selected as the most worthy organization by the site's visitors.
Alan Harlam, director of social entrepreneurship at the Swear Center for Public Service, said he currently works with nearly a half-dozen students at Brown who helped to start public service organizations, both in Providence and around the world.
Harlam said GHI reflects a growing interest in applying a liberal arts education and specific research to real world problems in the form of social entrepreneurship.
"There's a long legacy of very ambitious projects launched by Brown students," he said. "Emma is emblematic of the kind of high quality projects that Brown students are doing that have high impact in the communities in which they work."
Clippinger plans on continuing her work with GHI, but her ultimate goal is for the project to be operated by the Rwandan government.
"There's always funding out there, but its best when (a project) can become folded under the policy of the country," Clippinger said.
