Unatego Takes Top Prize in 'Student Voices' Contest
By BILL BELLEN
ONEONTA
Monday, November 24 marked the culmination of the fourth annual “Student Voices, Student Choices” presentation competition.
This event, organized by the Community Foundation of Otsego County, serves as an opportunity for students from across the county to engage in philanthropic projects in their respective communities.
The event took place in Hartwick College’s Slade Theater, where six teams of students from private and public schools gave 10-minute presentations on their projects and efforts to aid their communities.
Beginning in 2022, this competition was open to all interested schools, though in a more simplistic fashion.
“In the first year…they were asked to come up with a local issue, team up with a nonprofit, and make a presentation, and everyone would get funded at different levels,” explained CFOC Executive Director Jeff Katz.
“The second year, we started doing a September orientation at Hartwick College to prepare the schools a bit better on how to present, how to research, and the professor at Hartwick at the time posed a completely different objective. He said to the students, ‘Find the local need and come up with an idea and a project to address it.’ That was a game changer,” Katz said.
