Find My Food Drive wins Rep. Laura Gillen’s 2025 Congressional App Challenge in New York’s Fourth District
Rep. Laura Gillen has named Nicia Warren of Roosevelt High School as the winner of the 2025 Congressional App Challenge in New York’s Fourth District. Their app Find My Food Drive creates a database of food drives local to Roosevelt, New York.
When asked what inspired the creation of Find My Food Drive, Nicia Warren said, “Living in Roosevelt, I am face-to-face with food insecurity. My neighbors are battling it. My friends are battling it. My peers are battling it. It is in my school cafeteria when hoards of teens swarm to the lunch line before it is open, hungry to be the first, knowing that this is their only guaranteed meal of the day. It is in my classroom when I open a bag of chips, only to be met with the hands of my friends who haven’t had food in their homes for a week. It is in the hallways when the box that the student government has set out to collect non-perishables to donate for the holiday season is mysteriously empty because one of our very own needed it more. I look food insecurity in the face every day, and I know that nobody deserves to starve. I was inspired to create this app by my peers, who I want to have full stomachs.”
The 2025 Congressional App Challenge marked another record-setting year for the program. A total of 394 Members of the U.S. House of Representatives hosted App Challenges in their congressional districts, the highest level of participation in the program’s history. More than 13,800 students from across the country participated, submitting over 4,600 original apps focused on real-world challenges ranging from health and accessibility to education, sustainability, and civic engagement.
The Congressional App Challenge is an official initiative of the U.S. House of Representatives that encourages middle school and high school students to learn to code, explore computer science, and build practical technology solutions for their communities. Each participating Member of Congress selects a winning app from their district, and winning teams are invited to showcase their projects to Members of Congress, staff, and industry leaders at the annual #HouseOfCode celebration on Capitol Hill.
The Challenge is proudly bipartisan and reflects a shared commitment to expanding access to STEM education and preparing the next generation of American innovators for the future workforce. The program is a public-private partnership made possible through funding from the Broadcom Foundation, AWS, Infosys Foundation USA, theCoderSchool, Apple, and others.
The 2026 Congressional App Challenge will launch in May, and eligible students can pre-register for the competition now.