Yale Senior Donates Prize Money to Hurricane Relief Effort

Yale College Senior Sarah Stillman announced at the reception for winners of the Elie Wiesel 2005 Prize in Ethics Essay Contest that she would donate her $5,000 First Place Award to victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Foundation President and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel announced that for her “magnificent gesture of compassion and generosity,” the Foundation Board decided to match her contribution.

The Washington, D.C. native received the prize for her essay, “Made by Us: Young Women, Sweatshops and the Ethics of Globalization,” which was chosen from hundreds of submissions by students representing 200 colleges and universities throughout the country.

Last year Stillman was named to USA Today’s elite All-USA College Academic Team, and she lists among her achievements writing a book at the age of 15 for teenage girls (there are now more than 30,000 copies in print); founding and teaching in a tutoring program for inmates at a maximum security prison; making a documentary about Barbie Dolls and the exploitation of the women who make them; doing research on the plight of female factory workers in Latin America and China and joining them in their struggle for fair treatment; writing prize-winning poetry; organizing a national network of student-run tutoring programs for prisoners; and earning a 3.95 average as she pursues both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in anthropology.