1 of 2
Micah Jordan, Aiden Tombuelt and Trina Pham will share in a $5,000 scholarship award from the state’s electric cooperatives for their Pay it Forward plan to create mobile dental clinics.
Photo by Josh P. Crotzer
2 of 2
Pictured from left: S.C. State University Interim President Alexander Conyers, Dr. Emily England Clyburn Honors College Dean Dr. Harriet Roland, Jordan Brown, Jerdashia Scott, Simien Chestnut, Tri-County Electric Cooperative CEO Chad Lowder and Tri-County Electric Cooperative Director of Marketing & Energy Services Wilford Thompson.
Photo by Sam Watson, S.C. State University
What do you get when you ask some of South Carolina’s brightest young minds to take a fresh look at our toughest problems? In a word—innovation.
With the inaugural Pay it Forward competition, South Carolina’s statewide association of electric cooperatives challenged students at the state’s largest Honors College programs to brainstorm solutions to pressing social and economic problems in rural communities.
A team of students from the Clemson University Honors Program claimed the top scholarship prize of $5,000 for their plan to create mobile dental clinics to serve rural residents who do not have access to regular dental care. Trina Pham of Mauldin, Micah Jordan of Easley, and Aiden Tombuelt of Spartanburg outlined plans to outfit and staff mobile clinics and identified multiple partner organizations and funding sources.
Simien Chestnut of Saint Matthews, Jerdashia Scott of Spartanburg, and Jordan Brown of New Zion—students in S.C. State University’s Dr. Emily England Clyburn Honors College—were awarded a $1,000 scholarship for their team report, “Getting Crime Rates Down in Rural South Carolina.” The students researched crime patterns near historically black colleges and universities and proposed a community partnership initiative (complete with an app) to make students, faculty and staff aware of the risks and to provide crime prevention tips.
“It’s great to see young South Carolinians apply their education, talent and drive to the issues facing rural communities,” says Mike Couick, president and CEO of The Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina. “Both of these projects represent the creativity and critical problem-solving we hoped to inspire when we launched the Pay it Forward initiative.”
The projects were judged by a panel of community leaders including U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, Post & Courier reporter Avery Wilks, S.C. Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman, the Rev. Charles Jackson of Brookland Baptist Church, and Sue Berkowitz of the S.C. Appleseed Legal Justice Foundation.
For more on the Pay it Forward initiative, visit ecsc.org/pif.