Retail giant Amazon partnered with Western Washington University last fall to launch its new Catalyst program to harness the ideas of the campus community to solve pressing societal issues.
The focus of all submissions for the first competition of the program centered around food insecurity on the nation’s campuses. For several weeks in Fall 2019, Amazon launched a special website designed to receive submissions from Western’s students, faculty and staff around the chosen topic; a six-member judging panel reviewed the 28 entries submitted through the site, and announced three winners.
First prize, and an award of $7,500, went to students Aztlan Chavez, Pablo Flores, and Jennifer Kastner for their concept involving opening a new student store and food pantry in the Western Libraries available at no cost and attained by showing their student identification card. They wrote these proposals in Rachel Sarker’s English 302 class Fall quarter 2019.
