2025 President’s Prize recipient: Nourish to Flourish
The second installment of Penn Today’s 2025 President’s Prize winner roundup highlights three recent Penn graduates who are using their 2025 President’s Engagement Prize of $100,000 to tackle health and nutrition inequities in a West Philadelphia elementary school.
One year after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, 2025 President’s Engagement Prize winners Imani Nkrumah Ardayfio, Rashmi Acharya, and Inaya Zaman of Nourish to Flourish have been working to bring healthy eating and nutrition programing to a West Philadelphia Elementary School in their effort to reduce food insecurity and promote nutritional equity.
“Nourish to Flourish reimagines the cafeteria experience for schools and students,” says President J. Larry Jameson. “Inaya, Rashmi, and Imani are partnering with Comegys Elementary School to encourage students to make smart food choices.”
In a data and research-driven approach, they have employed behavioral-economics to nudge and motivate students towards nutritious choices. Focusing on K-6 students, the team notes that “children consume an estimated 35-40% of their total daily calories in school. By developing cafeteria programming with access to fresh produce, incentives to promote healthy snack choices, and cooking and nutrition classes the team is seeing their efforts pay off, as students develop lasting healthy habits.
Why It Matters
Food insecurity and nutrition inequity remain some of the most urgent and overlooked barriers to K-6 student success. For many kids in West Philadelphia, school is where they get most of their daily nutrition. By making healthy foods easier to choose and more fun to learn about, Nourish to Flourish is helping students build lifelong habits that support better health, stronger learning, and greater equity.
The Prize
The President’s Engagement Prize is a competitive prize awarded annually to Penn fourth-years who have designed a local, national, or global engagement project that is to be completed during the first year after they graduate. The prize includes $50,000 for living expenses for each student recipient, plus up to $100,000 for project implementation expenses.
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