DeLauro Celebrates Congressional App Challenge Winners at Joseph A. Foran High School

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Leighla-Marie Dantes and Violet Wilson receive award from Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro

MILFORD, CT — House Appropriations Committee Chair Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03) joined Joseph A. Foran High School Principal Max Berkowitz, Gateway Community College Professor and Director of Information Technology Professor Lawrence Salay, Milford Mayor Ben Blake, and high school students to celebrate the winners of Connecticut's Third Congressional District's Congressional App Challenge, Leighla-Marie Dantes and Violet Wilson.

This year, there were 13 participants in Connecticut's Third Congressional District's App Challenge. The winning app, Olive, is a customizable nutrition app that promotes healthy eating habits by focusing on physical and mental health and helping individuals lean away from disordered eating.

"I could not be more proud to celebrate the winners of the Congressional App Challenge, Leighla-Marie Dantes and Violet Wilson here at Joseph Foran High School in Milford," said Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro. "Together they've worked to create Olive that not only customizes to what you want to track, but it also includes a mental health diary on the home screen and can connect people to mental health hotlines if they need it. Their work on Olive is an incredible effort to help students who may struggle with disordered eating. This is an app that is meeting the moment so that we can do all we can to combat adolescent eating disorders. Through technology, coding, and app building, students in Connecticut are making a difference and working to create a better future for people across the country and around the world."

"We were first inspired when we realized how many people we knew had turned to food tracking apps because of their weight gain and/or vitamin deficiencies, only to find it negatively impacting their mental health," said Congressional App Challenge Winners Leighla-Marie Dantes and Violet Wilson. "After doing some research, we realized how the pandemic had impacted the rate of eating disorders and disordered eating in people our age and how the way food tracking apps are set up can incidentally promote eating disorder pathology."

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"It was great to get to honor the hard work and dedication of Violet and Leighla-Marie. They always go the extra mile and have such caring hearts, always looking out for others. Olive is just the start of the great things they can accomplish," said Computer Science and Mathematics Teacher David Spinetti.

"I want to thank Congresswoman DeLauro for sponsoring the Congressional App Challenge and for joining us at Foran to honor Leighla-Marie and Violet," said Joseph A. Foran Principal Max Berkowitz. "This was such a special event that recognized the thoughtfulness, creativity, and hard work that they put into producing their winning app, Olive. This contest gave our students an amazing opportunity to apply their knowledge and skills while engaging in a process that resulted in an app that could benefit many people."

"Milford is very proud of Leighla-Marie and Violet for representing the Milford community as winners of Connecticut's Third Congressional District's App Challenge," said Milford Mayor Ben Blake.

"The imagination and versatility that Leighla-Marie and Violet demonstrated in building the Olive app are precisely the type of skills the next generation of students will need to succeed in the 21st Century workforce- collaboration, ingenuity and problem solving," said Director of Information Technology at Gateway Community College Lawrence R. Salay, MBA, PMP.

Since its inception in 2013, the Congressional App Challenge has grown to become one of the most prestigious prizes in computer science. Over 30,000 students have participated in the Congressional App Challenge across 308 Congressional Districts in 49 states and five U.S. territories. The Congressional App Challenge was open to all middle and high school students in the Third Congressional District of Connecticut.

Learn more about the Congressional App Challenge here.