Wesleyan’s Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship is pleased to announce the winners of the 2018 PCSE Seed Grant. These student-led social impact projects and ventures will each receive $5,000 in unrestricted funds as well as training, advising, mentoring, incubator workspace, and other resources from the Patricelli Center.
Recipients were selected from a pool of finalists who submitted written business plans and pitched to a panel of expert judges comprised of alumni, parents, students, faculty, and community partners. Applicants were assessed on their project design, leadership qualities, and potential for social impact.
The 2018 Seed Grant recipients are:
Cardinal Kids
George Perez ’20, Jessica Russell ’20, Jenny Chelmow ’19, Vera Benkoil ’18, and Katie Murray ’19
Cardinal Kids is a financially self-sustaining program that will bring affordable arts, tech, and literacy programming to Middletown youth.
Eat at the Table Theatre Company
Kai Williams ’20 and Emma Morgan Bennett
E.A.T.T. is a non-profit theatre arts organization that is both founded and operated by and offers membership to actors of color under 22 years old. We are dedicated to creating theater opportunities for young actors of color in New York, as a means of combating discriminatory and racist practices within the theater industry, and to focusing on developing and centering the work of marginalized artists.
Young Achievers Foundation Ghana 
Ferdinand Quayson ’20, Derrick Dwamena (Yale University), Felix Agbavor (Drexel University), Derrick Dwamena (Michigan State)
Young Achievers Foundation (YAF) Ghana is a student-run initiative which promotes access to higher education for students in Northern Ghana through scholarship workshops and innovative in-school mentorship programs.
These students and teams exemplify the spirit of innovation and impact shared by so many members of the Wesleyan community. They follow in a long line of successful Wesleyan-connected social projects and enterprises. We wish them well as they launch or scale their work, and we stand by to support their endeavors going forward.
The Seed Grant and other Patricelli Center programs are made possible by numerous donors and volunteers, including Propel Capital, Newman’s Own Foundation, and the Norman Ernst Priebatsch Endowed Fund for Entrepreneurship.
Video from the Seed Grant final pitches will be available at https://video.wesleyan.edu/series/tag/patricelli in the coming weeks. For more information about the Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship, visit http://www.wesleyan.edu/patricelli.