Westmont Magazine Grants Support Initiatives at Westmont Downtown

Rachel Winslow and colleagues have recently secured two major grants to support projects at Westmont Downtown. The Westmont Initiative for Public Dialogue and Deliberation (WIPDD) received a $50,000 gift to expand its work. Co-directed by Deborah Dunn and Rachel, WIPDD hosts community forums and trains student facilitators to work with the Santa Barbara community to address local problems. The gift allowed the initiative to hire part-time project coordinator Jordan Baldridge ’18.

This summer, Don Patterson and Winslow—working with Enrico Manlapig and Ed Song—launched WestHUB, an interdisciplinary incubator for students who want to create a venture, organization or movement. Housed at Westmont Downtown, WestHUB (part of the Center for Technology, Creativity, and Moral Imagination) offers its student partners collaborative workspace, seed funding, targeted mentorships, a one-unit seminar, Redemptive Entrepreneurship, and community networks. WestHUB received a $100,000 gift generously donated by alumni Bill ‘81 and Diane ‘85 (Ratzlaff) Whitfield to fund student fellowships, facility resources, educational programming, and support staff.