Previous Grant Challenge Winners

Northwest Elementary
The students at Northwest Elementary have been chosen as a Come Together Game Changer Grant Challenge recipient for their “Our Wishes and Hopes for You” project. Through this project, the students created a book with positive quotes, pictures and stories for the students and families of Sandy Hook Elementary. This project was an opportunity for the students to understand how easy it is to serve the needs of others.


Athens Youth Advisory Committee
The Athens Youth Advisory Committee has been chosen as a Come Together Game Changer Grant Challenge recipient for their recycling program. Through this program students purchased recycling bins that they will monitor the use of and determine if a location change is necessary if more public information is needed. The main objective of this program is to encourage and promote recycling in the community, starting at the school level. The community will benefit as everyone begins to think about where waste goes and how it affects their lives and environment.


Timbuktu Academy
The kindergarten through eighth grade class at Timbuktu Academy has been chosen as a Come Together Game Changer Grant Challenge recipient for their Day of Service initiative. Each respective grade participated in their own designated service project all while including random acts of kindness. These services projects were a way to connect students with their school, neighborhood and to foster a sense of responsibility for doing what you can to support where you live, especially through small actions.


Gompers Elementary-Middle School
The Kindergarten through eighth grade class at Gompers Elementary-Middle School has been chosen as a Come Together Game Changer Grant Challenge recipient for their Day of Service initiative. The students used Dr. Kings “I Have a Dream” speech for inspiration when creating a poem, essay or illustration of their own dream world. Through this service project students throughout the entire school focused on issues present in Detroit, issues that many of the students witness and are affected by everyday.


JKL Bahweting Elementary
The second grade class at JKL Bahweting Elementary has been chosen as a Come Together Game Changer Grant Challenge recipient for their Family Movie Night initiative. Each year the second grade class hosts this fundraiser to benefit Chippewa County Animal Control Shelter. Through this initative student were able to learn advocacy, money counting, and customer service.


Four County Community Foundation
The Four County Community Foundation has been chosen as a Come Together Game Changer Grant Challenge recipient for their Text and Drive: You Won’t Survive initiative. Through this initiative YAC members educated other students the severe impact that texting and driving can have on people through online simulators. After participating in the online simulator, students then are able to stamp their finger print on banner pledging to never text and drive!


Urbandale Elementary
The 3rd grade class at Urbandale Elementary has been chosen as a Come Together Game Changer Grant Challenge recipient for their Teamwork and Community Building Across the Ages project. Through this project the students were able to participate in a monthly trip to Laurels of Bedford Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. This project gave the students a better understanding of how they can benefit their community while better understanding their classroom curriculum and experiencing a new setting.


Thornapple Kellogg High School
The 9th-12th grade classes at Thornapple Kellogg High School have been chosen as a Come Together Game Changer Grant Challenge recipient for their day of serive. This day of service allowed the students to learn more about various social justice issues prevalent in their community and a variety of ways they can impact. They then had the opportunity to create their own “Dear World” campaign that expresses inspirational words to those that are affected to one thing in the world that they would like to change.


Mackinac Island Community Foundation
The Mackinac Island Community Foundation has been chosen as a Come Together Game Changer Grant Challenge recipient for their advisor initiative. Through this initiative the students were able to impact the youth in another community by having a challenge grant. They raised money from their own community and then matched every dollar up to $2,000 to impact the youth in a chosen community that would otherwise be losing their school.


Detroit Edison Public School Academy Early College of Excellence
The 9th-11th grade class at Detroit Edison Public School Academy Early College of Excellence has been chosen as a Come Together Game Changer Grant Challenge recipient for their silent protest initiative. Through this silent protest students were able to create a peaceful demonstration while raising awareness of the story of Trayvon Martin.


Purdy Elementary
The Kindergarten class at Purdy Elementary has been chosen as a Come Together Game Changer Grant Challenge recipient for their “Coin Drive” initiative. Through this project students were able to learn about the voting process, the importance of helping others and about the two organizations they were voting on, all while fulfilling their classroom learning goals. This project ended up raising a substantial amount of money for the Pediatric Unit at Bronson Hospital.


Homer Community Foundation
The Homer Community Foundation has been chosen as Come Together Game Changer Grant Challenge recipient for their Adopt a Family initiative. Through this initiative students are able to work with counselors at local schools to determine a family to sponsor during the Christmas season. Students are able to learn the how rewarding the act of giving is, especially to a family in their own community.


North Park Montessori
The 1st-3rd grade class at North park Montessori has been chosen as a Come Together Game Changer Grant Challenge recipient for their “Let it Grow” initiatives. Through this project students had the opportunity learn about the severity of childhood hunger. They were then able to interact with members of the community through the Kids Food Basket as well as gain an appreciation for the work farmers do in the community.


Sturgis Area Community Foundation
The Sturgis Area Community Foundation has been chosen as a Come Together Grant Challenge recipient for their iGoToCollege project. The focus of the app, which the students developed, is on the importance of all students working towards completion of some form of post-secondary education. Facts/questions related to the need for post-secondary education appear via the app on the iPad screen. Upon selecting T/F the correct answer will appear on screen with a brief explanation; a link to the SturgisSUCCESS website and a college positive slogan to be developed by YAC.


David Ellis Academy
The 4th grade class at David Ellis Academy has been chosen as a Come Together Game Changer Grant Challenge recipient for their “A Call to Service” project. Through their initiatives students were able to volunteer for a cause they cared about outside of school for at least 5 hours. The students enjoyed volunteering so much that many of them have continued their initiative all on their own.


Romulus Elementary
The 1st grade class at Romulus Elementary has been chosen as a Come Together Game Changer Grant Challenge recipient for their “We Recycle” initiatives. Through their school wide recycling project students are able to learn the importance of recycling by tracking how much we recycle and how much oil, water, electricity and trees we are saving.


Capital Region Community Foundation
The Capital Region Community Foundation has been chosen as a Come Together Game Changers Grant Challenge recipient for their Jeans for Teens: Youth Homelessness project. Through this initiative YAC members educated their classmates about the issues of youth homelessness and collected clothing for their recipient, Gateway Community Services. YAC members accomplishments were being able to uplift vulnerable peers in their own community.


Godfrey-Lee Early Childhood Center
The second grade class at Godfrey-Lee Early Childhood Center has been chosen as a Come Together Game Changers Grant Challenge recipient for their “Bare Necessities” project. The students were able to raise money to go towards helping those in need at Degage by providing them with a bus ticket or a meal voucher. Through their initiatives students were able to learn the difference between needs and wants by being shown that their proceeds fulfilled the need for another.


Fremont Area Community Foundation
The Fremont Area Community Foundation has been chosen as a Come Together Game Changers Grant Challenge recipient for their “College Access Mini Grants” project. Their YAC has funded and accepted six mini-grants based on College Positive Communities that have given students opportunities that wouldn’t always be available to them, such as visiting a college campus at no cost.


Kent Intermediate School District - Kent Innovation High School
The 9th grade class of Kent Intermediate School District- Kent Innovation High School has been chosen as a Come Together Game Changers Grant Challenge recipient for their extensive project of collecting documentaries of WWII veterans from western Michigan. Through this project students were able to capture important WWII stories on film and present them back to the veterans families as a keep sake. They are also publishing all of the stories into a collective documentary that will be available at their local library.


Sault Area High School
The 11th and 12th grade class of Sault Area High School has been chosen as a Come Together Game Changers Grant Challenge recipient for their psychology through service efforts. Students were given an opportunity to serve each agency for a day, applying their knowledge, learning the ropes, engaging the clients, but most importantly engaging with the clients and staff to truly understand their role in the community and their needs as an organization and as individuals.


Future Youth Involvement/ Tuscola County Community Foundation
The FYI- Tuscola County YAC has been chosen as a Come Together Game Changers Grant Challenge recipient for their project “Cardboard City.” They have worked at a local soup kitchen, granted funding to an organization that sends a backpack full of food home with students in need for the weekend and initiated the Homelessness Fund within the TCCF. To date, FYI has been the primary fundraiser for the Homelessness Fund, permanently endowing in excess of $30,000 in the fund.


Alpine Elementary School
The 5th grade class of Alpine Elementary in Comstock Park, Michigan has been chosen as a Come Together Game Changers Grant Challenge recipient for their fight against childhood hunger. By having the students create and sell paintings they are able to help put food in the mouths of their fellow students and allow them to do advocacy for the issue of childhood hunger.


Cedar Springs High School
The 9th and 10th grade academy at Cedar Springs High School has been chosen as a Come Together Game Changers Grant Challenge recipient for their year-long water initiative project. Through the water initiative, the students were able to learn about the importance of water sustainability, while also participating in projects that included watershed cleanup and rain barrel building and selling.


Ionia County Youth Advisory Council
The Ionia County YAC has been chosen as a Come Together Game Changers Grant Challenge recipient for their project “Drive to Survive.” Through the program, which has gained the council national attention, the students have raised awareness for teen driver safety through presentations in schools, public service announcements, billboards, and marketing materials.


YAC from the Huron County Community Foundation
The Huron County Community Foundation Youth Advisory Council has been chosen as a Come Together Game Changers Grant Challenge recipient for their participation in a youth leadership summit, Under the Influence: The Impact of Youth on Community. During the two-day summit, the students collaborated with other community leaders to discuss issues facing today’s youth and brainstorm community engagement activities.


Northview High School
The 9th and 10th grade Biology classes of Northview High School has been chosen as a Come Together Game Changers Grant Challenge recipient for their service-learning project “Real-Life Aliens!” After studying about environmental issues and invasive plant species in school, the students applied their learning by volunteering time at the Blanford Nature Center to help rid the area of harmful plants.


Malcolm High School
Malcolm High School has been chosen as a Come Together Game Changer Grant Challenge recipient for their Greenhouse project. With the grant, the students from Malcolm will learn about environmental issues in a hands-on setting, while also growing flowers and vegetables for local nursing and retirement home residents.


Sault Area High School
Students from Sault Area High School have been chosen as a Come Together Game Changer Grant Challenge recipient for their LINKS program. LINKS is a self-sustaining peer-to-peer program, through which students not only help to educate and socialize students with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, but also help to educate and socialize general education students, school staff, and their community to the wonderful uniqueness that is autism.


Hillsdale County Community Foundation
Hillsdale County Community Foundation YOUTH has been selected as a Game Changers Grant Challenge recipient for their 5th annual Fill the Freezer Food Drive. Through the October drive, YOUTH (Youth Opportunities Unlimited Throughout Hillsdale) supported local food pantries with donations of frozen and non-perishable food items.


Harrison Park Middle School
Students from the 8th grade classes at Harrison Park Middle School have been selected as a Game Changers Grant Challenge recipient for their service-learning project through which they partnered with the Grand Rapids Veterans home. In addition to making blankets for veterans beforehand, the students spent time fishing with veterans. During their time visiting with the veterans, students learned valuable lessons about service and U.S. history.


Loyola High School
Students from Loyola High School have been selected as a Game Changer Grant Challenge recipient for their volunteer work with Veterans in Detroit. Loyola volunteered at Cass Community Social services to prepare, cook and serve meals to homeless veterans, planted flowers in honor of the veterans, and sent letters and stories to active duty members of The Navy.


Lenawee Youth Council
Lenawee Youth Council has been selected as a Game Changer Grant Challenge recipient for their Weekend Snack Sacks program. Each week, the council helps to provide over 250 students with sacks full of food items to take home for the weekend. The Weekend Snack Sacks program helps to fight child hunger in their area, and they continue to expand the program.


Purdy Elementary School
K -2 students at Purdy Elementary School have been selected as a Game Changer Grant Challenge recipient for their service learning project, "Pumpkin Project," through which they auction off decorated pumpkins to raise money for the South Central Michigan Food Bank. During the 5th annual event, students learn about issues of hunger and the importance of being involved in community service at any age!