Five East Tennessee State University student teams took the stage on Monday, Oct. 6, to pitch their ideas to tackle community challenges. A panel of judges selected three prize winners, and the crowd voted for its favorite.

In total, the ETSU Elevates Pitch Competition invested $20,000 into the region. The pitch competition kicked off the university’s third annual Founders Week, a celebration of ETSU’s history and mission to improve the lives of the people of the region.

ETSU Elevates featured five projects that paired students with five different community partners to address an economic, social or environmental issue of their choice.

First Place: Project MANNA

The judges awarded the $3,000 first place to Project MANNA, led by a public health doctoral student Aliyah Smith-Gomis, of Mobile, Alabama. Smith-Gomis partnered with the Appalachian Resource Conservation & Development Council to connect Black farmers in Appalachia with Black mothers, nourishing families while empowering local agricultural communities.

Second Place and People's Choice: Project Welcome Home Veteran


Earning second place from the judges and the $1,000 People’s Choice Award was Project Welcome Home Veteran, led by Reed Bull. He partnered with Heidi’s House of Hope. His project supports microhome communities for veterans by helping outfit homes and provide supplies to create stable housing.

“Project Welcome Home Veteran has truly been a blessing in my life,” said Bull, an economics major from Seymour. “Through our partnership with Heidi’s House of Hope, we’re working to provide attainable housing and supply drops that help veterans find day-one success. Moving forward, I hope to grow this project by supporting the development of the housing community and connecting with more veterans in need. At Project Welcome Home Veteran, we believe that veterans deserve more than just our gratitude. They deserve a home, a future, and a community that stands beside them.”

Third Place: Confidence Kits

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Emma Hurley, an interior architecture and art major, and Connor Davidson, a finance major, took home third prize, which is an additional $1,000 for their project “Confidence Kits.” They partnered with LightSource Ministries to develop kits to equip students at Doe Elementary in Johnson County with fully stocked hygiene kits to help them feel cared for, prepared and confident at school.

The ETSU Elevates judges included: Cindy Huss, director of RISE: Health for Life; Greg Walters, volunteer services coordinator of Goodwill Industries of Tenneva Area, Inc.; and Jessie Wang, assistant dean of Student Success and Access in ETSU’s Clemmer College of Education and Human Development.

Learn more about ETSU Elevates at etsu.edu/elevates. To see how ETSU students are excelling in and out of the classroom, visit etsu.edu/go-beyond.

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