Kaila Lemons and Maria Rios Cabrera are this year’s winners of the Ivory Prize for Excellence in Student Leadership and Community Engagement. Both students will receive a cash prize and a donation towards the recipients’ cause, team or initiative for positively influencing either student success on campus or for being a leader in community engagement.

Lemons is WSU’s first campus Zero Waste Coordinator and the president of Food Recovery Network. Over the last two years, Lemons organized 50 volunteers across campus to generate less waste and increase recycling efforts among university groups.

The volunteers Lemons recruited also worked with northern Utah’s largest homeless shelter, Lantern House, to donate almost 2,000 pounds of food that would have been wasted. Lemons has spent time organizing and managing clothing and supply swaps, a bicycle fix-it workshop and outdoor sustainability projects such as xeriscaping, tree planting and composting events.

WSU senior Cabrera, the student coordinator for the Disability Service Center’s Creating Achievement Through Transition program, leads a team of mentors who help students with learning disabilities in 11 high schools in the Weber, Davis and Morgan school districts’ transition to college.

At 9 years old, Cabrera immigrated from Honduras. Through her struggles with English, her own learning challenges and the culture, Cabrera relates to the adversities these students may face.

The Clark and Christine Ivory Foundation established the Ivory Prize in 2020 to encourage and recognize WSU students who are involved in their communities. Nominees are required to be currently enrolled or a graduate of the last five years at WSU.

The Center for Community Engaged Learning will host the CCELebration in the Shepherd Union Ballrooms on March 31 from 4-6 p.m.