July 19, 2022
Written by Nikki Raghavan and Edited by Stephanie Sun
Last Tuesday, July 12, Building Bridges participated in the YEFA (Youth Entrepreneurship and Finance Association) IHSSIC (International High School Social Impact Competition), which sets out to find the best student led non-profit organizations in the nation. Estelle Shen and Stephanie Sun, co-founders of Building Bridges, prepared all the necessary material for the presentation, from the slide show to actually presenting what Building Bridges is all about in front of a panel of judges and an audience of over 300 people, with the help of other club members. Building Bridges participated in this event in order to build connections and expand our outreach. We wanted to use this opportunity to learn how to improve as an organization while also introducing Building Bridges on a wider scale.
The entire team played a part in helping make this event possible. Our club members worked together to create a compelling presentation to make Building Bridges stand out from the other 20 non profit organizations that competed. The participants spent approximately 80 hours working on getting ready for the competition. In the presentation, we discussed our achievements throughout the year, acknowledged officers and exemplary club members, as well the impact we have made on the families and students we work with. We also discussed our future goals and what we hope to accomplish by expanding our horizons, both within and outside of our organization.
In the end, we won 1st overall, taking home the grand prize of a $500 grant awarded to us by YEFA. In her closing speech Estelle stated, “I’m really thankful to YEFA for providing us with this amazing opportunity to expand our network and listen to so many other amazing opportunities to learn from other nonprofits.” This event helped us learn so many new things we could try to keep improving our organization as well as other future opportunities we could have, while also helping us become stronger and more efficient as a team. We were also able to learn from other non-profits and expand our outreach.
Comments