MRDelta wins Rep. Mike Ezell’s 2024 Congressional App Challenge in Mississippi’s Fourth District

When asked what inspired the creation of MRDelta, the students said, “As two girls growing up near the Mississippi River Delta, the health and perseverance of the region has always been important to us. We acknowledged the critical degradation the delta faces, but were surprised to see that our friends and the community around us lacked the understanding. The absence of education about this crisis has deeply affected the community engagement and efforts in restoring the delta. This disconnection between the crisis the delta faces and the lack of public awareness drove us to take action. 

To gather data and deepen our knowledge about how much awareness our community has, we presented a survey to around 100 respondents. Aiming for an unbiased research result, we conducted our survey to citizens of all ages and genders shopping locally at Walmart and Costco in New Orleans, home of the Mississippi River Delta. The statistics prove that 82% of those surveyed have no concept of the Mississippi river delta crisis and 15% of those surveyed are only somewhat familiar with this crisis. This brief survey demonstrates the lack of awareness and understanding of the Mississippi River Delta crisis, which further emphasizes the lack of involvement within our community. Out of all the people surveyed, no one has participated in delta restoration efforts.
 

What inspired us to utilize technology to help increase awareness stemmed from the question: ‘where do you usually seek information about environmental issues such as delta restoration efforts?’ Our survey shows that most citizens receive information through social media platforms. Over 40% of those surveyed receive information about environmental issues from social media platforms, with the second highest following at under 25% being news websites. This shows the prevalence of the use of social media. With this knowledge in mind, we set our minds to create our app.
 

As two girls from Mississippi, we knew that alone we can do very little to solve this impending issue. However, with collaboration and collective effort from our community, this crisis becomes a solvable problem. The widespread use of technology motivated us to leverage its uses and create an app that can help increase awareness and enhance involvement from the community.”