In the spring of 2009, Do Something teamed up with Mountain Dew Voltage to find groups of young people who were using their collective energy to create change. We chose the 20 finalists, but it was YOUR VOTE that chose the 10 groups taking $10,000 each for their project. Meet all ten of the winning teams below!

Global Language Network

Global Language Network
Team Captain:Andrew Brown, 24
Team Members: Freidricka Camille (23), Laura Pettinelli (19), Hunter Holt (20), Jacquelyn Ford (23), Alyson Hoskinson (20), Katharine Clements (19), Jin Joo Shim (20), Isabella Mcroczkowski (20), Dale Swirhun (24)

The Global Language Network was formed to address the inequities in secondary language learning in the United States. While a majority of the world’s citizens speak more than one language, the United States cites only 9% of the population as fluent in a language outside of English. The GLN is an innovative program that makes language and cultural education free and fun for everyone everywhere, allowing communities across the United States to be better equipped for an increasingly globalized society. The free, volunteer-run program utilizes pre-existing skills of native-language speakers in the United States to give other people the chance to improve their foreign language skills and to solidify ties within their community.

Find out more: Global Language Network on Do Something

Chinatown: Read to the Top!

Chinatown: Read to the Top!
Team Captain:Michael Pan, 21
Team Members: Giselle Obregon (20), Anne Kewi (20), Cindy Luk (20), Megan Choy (21), Abbey Vandersall (19), Kiran Singh (19), Rafaelina Rodriguez (21), Lauren Ko (20)

In Lower Manhattan’s Chinatown, about 35% of US-born and immigrant children live below the poverty line. Many Chinatown residents do not have a high school diploma and do not speak any English, which poses problems for their children’s English-language education. Michael and his Columbia classmates are working to solve this problem with an integrative approach that targets both children and their parents. The planned program will combine read-a-long activities with free books and cultural field trips around the city for the kids with a separate program that will provide parents with ways to encourage English-language literacy in their homes.

Find out more: Chinatown: Read to the Top! on Do Something

The CIW Garden Project

The CIW Organic Prison Garden
Team Captain:Hannah Segal
Team Members: Adrian Hodos (22), Halley Everall (21), Cassandra Gamm (19), Samantha Meyer (21)

Women inside of California’s prisons have limited access to healthy food and exercise. The Garden Project, at the California Institution for Women, solves both of these problems and while allowing incarcerated women an option for positive recreational activity and interaction with others through gardening. The garden builds connections between the women inside and outside of the community, giving women access to educational, rehabilitative, and occupational resources that would otherwise not have options. The garden will provide fresh fruits and vegetables for women in the prison without the health, cost, and environmental problems associated with delivering fresh food in bulk.

Find out more: The CIW Garden Project on Do Something

The Magnolia Project

The Magnolia Project
Team Captain:Klara Suptova
Team Members:Elizaveta Bashkirova (22) , Christa Lim (21), Jessica Fabro (21), Maggie Young (21), Geoffrey Mitchell (21), Ravi Patel (20)

The Magnolia Project is a student, staff and faculty initiative committed to raise on-campus awareness at Berkeley on the injustices surrounding Hurricane Katrina. In keeping with UC Berkeley’s history of student activism, the Magnolia Project aims to keep Hurricane Katrina on the minds of students for years to come. It is a long-term campus resource for all those interested in discussing, participating, rebuilding, and learning about the issues surrounding Hurricane Katrina.

Find out more: The Magnolia Project on Do Something

ImMEDIAte Justice

Women’s Creative Collective for Change
Team Captain:Laney Rupp
Team Members:Sylvia Raskin (23) , Tani Ikeda (22), Simone Andrews (21), Teresa Cheng (21), Karynn Ikeda (22)

ImMEDIAte Justice is a summer program designed to empower young women leaders from South Central and East LA to share their knowledge through film. The program will bring youth mentors who have received comprehensive training in reproductive justice at Reach LA and Planned Parenthood into creative collaboration with peers who have had limited access to this education. These youth-driven film projects will address the critical issues and concerns that relevant to the lives of young people in LA. The long-term goal of this program is to create a participant-led, interactive web forum that sparks informative dialogue between young people about the films, sexual health, and reproductive justice.

Find out more: ImMEDIAte Justice on Do Something

Student Conservation Association

Restore Musconetcong Gorge
Team Captain: Lauren Smith, 20
Team Members: Arielle Conroy (20), Doug Klein (17), Rosemary Dattler (20), Zachary Heyman (17), Russell Smith (18), Vlad Strelecki (18), Max Pucciarello (18)

The Student Conservation Association, a group of New Jersey teens, is dedicated to the restoration of a local nature reserve neglected due to accessibility issues. This area, the Musconetcong Gorge, has beautiful features with valuable opportunities for education in the history, hydrology, geology, and ecology of the area. By improving the quality of trails and accessibility of the park, the SCA will open up a previously little-known resource in the community. The SCA is a sustainable community fixture that has existed for 8 years consisting of teens and young leaders dedicated to sustaining and improving the quality of local nature preserves. The SCA has a solid partnership with the Hunterdon Country Parks and Recreation Department, which trusts and relies on the SCA to maintain and build new trails on preserves. Their extensive experience was responsible for the creation of accessible trails along Point Mountain, the third-highest point in the county.

Find out more: Restore Musconetcong Gorge on Do Something

Rainwater For Humanity

Rainwater for Humanity
Team Captain: Carolyn Aker, 19
Team Members:Team Members: Christine Tang (22), Stephanie Cheung (20), Minoo Ramanthan (20), Deborah Lai (18), Peter Boyer (22)

The Rainwater for Humanity team is comprised of Brown University Engineers without Borders members and Rhode Island School of Design’s design and architecture students working towards a shared goal of solving water scarcity in Kerala, India. Due to pollution and overpopulation, the people of Kerala face serious access problems to clean water. Rainwater for Humanity plans to solve this problem with a multifaceted approach that attacks the problem on multiple levels, from empowerment and education measures for the community to the installation of specially designed rainwater harvesting structures and reservoirs. The sustainability of the project will be evaluated based on the ability of the local population to tend to the structures and their ability to maximize the benefits of clean water in the community.

Find out more: Rainwater for Humanity on Do Something

Health Horizons International

Beyond Medicine
Team Captain: Laura McNulty, 22
Team Members:Angi Kang (23), Raquel Rios (21)

After participating in several medical relief trips in the Puerto Plata province of the Dominican Republic, Laura, Angi, and Raquel were inspired to create a sustainable community health program that would address the problems left unsolved by short medical service programs. Working with the Health Horizons International Foundation, a non-profit that connects US physicians and students to communities lacking access to health care, they plan to resolve issues of sustainability by surveying local community members to gauge the success of past medical trips in Puerto Plata, and create a system by which the impact of the trips can be accurately evaluated. The team members will develop preventive health care programs to create meaningful change and improve upon the trips, while simultaneously setting up clinics in different villages across the region. Additionally, Laura and Angi will stay in DR for the next year to implement and gauge the success of various initiatives, allowing a constant source of information exchange to take place between the US and the DR.

Find out more: Beyond Medicine on Do Something

Bicycles Against Poverty

Bicycles Against Poverty
Team Captain:Dick Muyambi, 20
Team Members:Kopan Majara (21), Sowande Parkinson (22)

Bicycles Against Poverty is a microfinance bike project in which bicycles are made available to marginalized communities in Uganda. Due to civil unrest and violent rebel uprisings, many Ugandans have been relocated to camps and are unable to farm, causing devastating hunger and poverty in a country reliant on agriculture. Dick, a native of Uganda, knows that one way of resolving this problem is to provide a means of transportation from the camps to farmland so that displaced peoples have a way of working their land. The project is initially expected to provide 100 bicycles to residents of the Gulu district, who pay a small fee (approximately 50 cents) to receive a bicycle. The small fee goes towards the purchase of new bicycles of the program and the maintenance of the bike is the responsibility of the lender. Ultimately, the goal of the project is to grow and sustain BAP and bring a bicycle to every family in the community.

Find out more: Bicycles Against Poverty on Do Something

FEMMES

FEMMES (Females Excelling More in Math, Engineering and Science)
Team Captain:Jennifer Chen, 20
Team Members:Aubrey Bonhivert (22), Allison Elia (21), Jessica Shuen (21)

FEMMES is a group of female Duke University students specializing in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields working to address the gender imbalance present in these subjects. While women are well represented in the general working population, they are outnumbered 4-1 in the science and technology work force. Young girls in school have reported a lack of interest in science and math, a troublesome phenomenon that FEMMES is aiming to troubleshoot by integrating creative, hands-on approaches to teaching and utlizing specialized approaches to low-income and disadvantaged youth. Jennifer and her teammates, in addition to being science, technology, and math majors, are especially well equipped to handle the problem because of their extensive involvement in both Duke and the surrounding community of Durham, NC.

Find out more: FEMMES on Do Something