ETSU held its second ETSU Elevates Pitch Competition last Thursday, and opened the stage for five new competitors to talk their way into $5,000.

King’s Critter Crew, SHEro’s Journey and Inspiring Girls to Become Engineers were each winners of a $5,000 prize.

The event took place at 6:30 p.m in the Millenium Center Ballroom, and was emceed by Amy Lynn of WJHL’s Daytime Tri-Cities.

ETSU Elevates is a competitive grant program started last year under the direction of ETSU President Brian Noland. Each applicant receives the chance to be one of five teams randomly drawn for the pitch competition, then the public decides which three get to leave with $5,000. Those who don’t receive the grant are entered back into the pool for the next competition’s drawing. This time around, ETSU Elevates received over 40 applications.

  • Representatives from Girls Inc. accept their ETSU elevate grant. (Photograph by Karissa Clark / East Tennessean)
  • Representative from SHEroes accepting their ETSU Elevate grant. (Photograph by Karissa Clark / East Tennessean)
  • Representatives from the Unicoi County Animal Shelter and the ETSU Department of Biological Sciences accept an ETSU Elevates grant.(Photograph by Karissa Clark / East Tennessean)

Each competitor had seven minutes for their proposal and three questions from the audience before the votes were cast. This round’s teams included Critter Crew from the Unicoi County Animal Shelter, Tree Team from Tusculum University, SHEro’s Journey, ART: Blue Plum Gives Back, and Inspiring Girls to Become Engineers.

SHEro’s Journey requested funding for storytelling experiences with girls with adverse childhood experiences in order to help them take back their narrative and relate with characters that experience and overcome obstacles.

Critter Crew’s Kevin King outlined plans to build a kitten intake area in the Unicoi County Animal Shelter to help alleviate the health problems and space issues that kittens can face and introduce into shelters.

ART: Blue Plum Gives Back proposed a large paint-by-numbers mural located downtown as part of the existing art walk to be completed by the Johnson City community after the outline was laid out by local artists.

To help move more women into engineering and the STEM field in general, Inspiring Girls to Become Engineers hoped to create opportunities for girls to interact with and learn about STEM opportunities and leading STEM women. 

After all the votes were tallied, King’s Critter Crew won the first $5,000 check of the night, followed by SHEro’s Journey and Inspiring Girls to Become Engineers.

“It has been a relentless fight for two years of just wanting to save animals, so to just get this help and know that we can help so many, like it doesn’t even feel real,” King said. “I want to get it rolling as soon as possible because we’ve got kitten season coming up. I’ve got contractors and an architect to start getting this rolling. And I mean by six months I want it done, so I can use it because we’re going to need it.” 

For more information on ETSU Elevates and this round’s competitors, visit etsu.edu/etsuelevates.