Aaron Danowski

This past year, Gonzaga was blessed to host the 2014 Opus Prize, a 1.2 million dollar faith based humanitarian award  that recognizes three social entrepreneurs annually for their outstanding work fighting social ills in various places around the world. I was chosen as one of seven student vetters to travel and learn firsthand about the work of one of the finalists. In May 2014, I travelled to Chennai, India to meet Mr. Gollapalli Israel, an "untouchable" working with manual scavengers in Chennai, a group of undesirables forced to clean human waste from streets, dry latrines and sewers. It was a transformational experience for me, and ever since I've set my sights on becoming a social entrepreneur myself.

In the spring before going to India, I also worked with the Opus Prize Steering Committee and Academic Subcommittee to plan seven Opus Night events every Tuesday in the Fall leading up to Award Ceremony week. Finally,I had the honor of  introducing Mr. Israel at the awards ceremony in front of 1500 people at the Fox Theater in Spokane.