2026 SVPC Recap

The 2026 SVPC showcase event

Work Opportunities for Women Among Top Themes at 2026 SVPC

Seattle Pacific University held its Twentieth Annual Social Venture Plan Competition (SVPC) Showcase on Wednesday, April 15, 2026. Teams of students from different academic majors and disciplines developed solutions to a wide variety of social problems, with several key themes. A couple of projects looked at ways to eliminate apparel and textile waste, while a few others focused on food insecurity or food waste. But several of the biggest winners of the day honed in on finding better employment opportunities for women from marginalized backgrounds. The Showcase event, the finale of the annual SVPC, occurred in upper Gwinn Commons on the SPU campus.

Students pose together

The winning project was ReForged Connections, chosen as the $10,000 Scott and Kathleen Cummins Grand Prize winner by the combined votes of nearly 70 judges representing the business, non-profit, academic, and professional communities. Next Gen Impact came in second, winning a $5,000 runner-up award. Over the course of the day, nearly three hundred students, faculty, staff, and community members visited the Showcase and voted for their favorite project, and the Donald B. Summers People’s Choice award of $1,500 went to Blooming Hands Project.

More than half of women who have been incarcerated reoffend within five years, fueled in part by employment discrimination, which is is higher for women with a conviction history than for men. At the same time, Washington’s skilled trades industries (e.g., construction, welding, plumbing, etc.) face a labor shortage as the current workforce ages and workers retire. ReForged Connections’ business proposal would solve one problem with the other, facilitating training and certification for women leaving the penal system before serving as an employer-funded hiring agency that would place them with firms in need of those newfound skills. The ReForged Connections team included junior Business Administration major David Rodriguez, junior Apparel Design and Merchandising major Jessica Blackburn, senior Business Administration majors Malia Ana Silva and Samira Biembongo, junior Psychology major Shailey Makahanaloa Valoroso, and junior Applied Human Biology and Honors major Lillian Hamilton Ulrich.

One in 10 Washington residents face food insecurity, but existing solutions to hunger, such as SNAP benefits and food banks, carry stigma and barriers to access. Next Gen Impact seeks to open a food truck selling loaded baked potatoes under the brand name, Rainier Spuds. Working at a high profit margin, the profitable potato business would allow Next Gen Impact to sell reduced cost meals to those who cannot afford full price ones. The half-price meals would be facilitated through an invisible Support Pass system, distributed through local partner non-profit organization. The Next Gen Impact team consisted of four Business Administration majors, seniors Nicholas Lombardo and Ai Suzuki, and juniors Diego Pena-Salgado and Silvestre Vallejo.

Students pose together

Three Honorable Mention prizes of $2,500 were also awarded:

Students pose together

InnovatHer recognizes that many immigrant women have education and credentials that are not recognized in the US job market. Many of these highly educated immigrants do not have professional networks in this country, and wind up unemployed or underemployed, working entry level jobs. The InnovatHer team proposed an employment agency that would offer not just traditional résumé and interview preparation, but credential evaluation support and direct placement opportunities, leading to higher workforce participation and higher salaries for female immigrants. InnovatHer was the work of senior Business Administration majors Maggie McGowan, Zirce Valeriano-Reyes, and Asrar Alkhamis, junior Business Administration major Elsa Assefa, and senior Politics, Philosophy, and Economics major Sadie McMillan.

Young consumers increasingly value sustainability, and yet the global textile market sends 92 million tons of garments to landfill every year. 1,200 of those tons come from the Salt Lake City region alone, where team Rethread would open a social venture offering sewing and mending classes to young people. As part of their training, workshop attenders would upcycle clothing pieces with the opportunity to earn a commission on the sale of those items. Rethread would use the rest of the proceeds from those second-hand garments to continue their sustainability work and training programs. Rethread estimates that they can remove 3,000 pounds of old garments from the waste stream per year with their model. The Rethread team included Mariella Gallart, a junior Business Administration major, Jaimie Duckworth, a senior Apparel Design and Merchandising major, and Angel Berger, a junior Business Administration major from Washington State University – Vancouver.

Students pose together
Students pose together

SORVY would take invasive Northern Pacific Seastars that are decimating coastal ecosystems and upcyle them into biomimetic filter cartridges for home aquarium owners. This keeps the seastar waste from simply being incinerated, the normal disposal method, and provides a sustainable replacement product for fish lovers. SORVY was devised by Austin Lee, a first-year Finance major at Washington State University, and Junseop Lim, a first year Physics major at Arizona State University.

Blooming Hands Project, winners of the People’s Choice Award, presented a business idea that would pair young people, aged 17-22, in need of work experience with older entrepreneurs in farmer’s markets. This model of intergenerational exchange would provide learning and opportunity on both sides of the partnership. Blooming Hands Project was developed by senior Business Administration majors Abdiel Garcia, Noel Ramos, Ryan Dinham, and Imran Mustafa, along with senior Computer Science major Dylan Beppu, and senior Accounting and Business double major Silvan Htoo.

Students pose together

This is the twentieth year of SPU’s Social Venture Plan Competition. Fifteen teams presented their business ideas at the Showcase event, comprising approximately 60 students. In the first round of the competition, an initial wave of 17 written business plans, representing students from six different schools, were read, reviewed, and scored by community partners..

The Showcase Round was the finale of the Social Venture Plan Competition. In addition to the review of written business plans, earlier stages in the competition included a series of seminars on the basics of writing a business plan as well as coaching sessions with knowledgeable businesspeople, non-profit executives, and others. In all, over 120 community volunteers gave time as readers, instructors, coaches, and judges.

Entrepreneur and first-time SVPC volunteer Rubelyn Chu observed, “I was glad to be a part of this in some small way. I’m so happy to see the team I coached, InnovatHer, as one of the prize winners!”

Business consultant and returning SVPC volunteer, Bruce Scheer added his praises. “Thanks so much to all of the competitors for putting together another wonderful set of businesses and for all the energy around this.”

Financial sponsors of the SVPC include the Scott and Kathleen Cummins Family Foundation, Kathryn and Tim Carlson, Northwest Center, Pioneer Human Services, Highland Private Wealth Management, Skills, Inc., and one Anonymous donor. The competition is organized by the Burton and Ralene Walls Center for Applied Learning (CAL) in SPU’s College of Business and Technology (CBT).