No high school students qualified as finalists of the newly-established Innovation Launch Grant Program, and elementary school students will be named tomorrow as the two winners.

“I really had hoped for more high school applications,” President Ann Marie Krejcarek said. “I was disappointed with that number, but we’ll work on how we support that process.”

The program encouraged students to design a product for a $2,500 grant, and four high school students submitted applications.

Freshman Sarah Mahnke-Baum applied for the grant to fund her idea of creating a young entrepreneurs program at Convent in which girls could create a business and sell their products at Christmas on Broadway, an annual December boutique and fundraiser featuring local businesses.

“I was in a similar program at my elementary school,” Mahnke-Baum said. “It was really helpful to me and I was able to turn that experience into an actual business. It teaches work ethic and also business sense.”

Many students forgot about applying to the program, according to Mahnke-Baum.

“It wasn’t publicized very well,” Mahnke-Baum said. “We talked about it once in an assembly, and then it was never brought up again.”

Junior Cat Heinen also applied for the grant, proposing that high school students teach singing and dancing to elementary school students and later perform a show for their families and friends.

“I ran the idea by Ms. Simpson at the beginning of the year,” Heinen said. “The Launch Grant came up right at the end of the school musical so I had time to think about the project and devote time to it. It just kind of came about at the right time.”

Krejcarek received about 40 applications, with the majority submitted by the seventh and eighth grade girls.

Convent Elementary School science teacher Kellie Mullin encouraged her seventh and eighth grade students to apply to extend their 20 Percent Projects, a year long project in which students have one-fifth of class time to work on developing their ideas.

“The introduction of the scholarship grants makes it feel really real and authentic,” Mullin said. “I wanted everyone to have that authentic experience of what it’s like to apply for a grant and to learn about that process because that goes beyond just this particular project.”

The grant is intended to aid the development of the winners’ ideas.

“The school supports that kind of thinking and supports innovation and new ideas and that money makes it a reality,” Mullin said. “Design thinking is an academic skill that we value and we think is important.”

A team of seven, including Krejcarek, reviewed the applications and chose 10 groups of finalists to advance to the next round, eight from Convent Elementary and two from Stuart Hall Elementary.

The late Rosemary Cozzo, an alumna of Lone Mountain College, donated the grant money.

“Rosemary Cozzo was a dear friend,” Krejcarek said. “She just found it fascinating so she gave us an outright gift for these two awards, but also has left us in her will. It’s quite possible that part of the funds that come from that will endow this program keeping it alive going forward.”

The program will expand in the future, with larger grants and more time to develop ideas in core classes, according to Krejcarek.

“Design thinking can definitely be implemented into various projects within different classes,” Heinen said. “An entire year of just design thinking may not be completely beneficial, but some of the aspects of design thinking like the workshops we do and this opportunity for the Launch Grant are fantastic ways to get students started in that mindset and to get them to creatively think.”