From Syllabi to Service: How One Semester Can Launch a Legacy
February,2026
A chance info session and a districtwide pitch win launched Anya Gupta from classroom networking to a community-minded startup and multiple civic leadership seats
When the semester begins, many students focus on syllabi and schedules. For Anya Gupta, this spring started with a spontaneous pitch, $1,000 prize, and new leadership roles on regional boards — a chain of opportunities that turned a campus idea, Wellness Pulse, into real-world impact and civic service. Donors, alumni, and campus programs power the long arc that makes stories like hers possible.
When the semester calendar flips open, most students are threading syllabi into binders and scanning schedules. For Anya Gupta, this spring began with a different kind of first week: a winning pitch, new leadership seats on regional boards, and the momentum of opportunities seeded at Diablo Valley College.
Anya hadn’t planned to enter the districtwide pitch competition. She stopped by an info session (there was free pizza) and, on a whim, built a 20-slide pitch that became Wellness Pulse — an anonymous, short-form platform to surface how students and community members are feeling so leaders can intervene early. Selected as a finalist, Anya presented before local mayors, investors, and transit leaders — and won. The prize stipend helped her expand Wellness Pulse beyond campus pilots; the recognition opened seats on BART’s security committee, the Contra Costa County Behavioral Health Board (where she’s been nominated for chair), and the MTC advisory group.
Anya’s story is a clear arc from classroom to community: a networking workshop in a single semester pushed her out of her comfort zone, club advising and campus programs gave her places to practice, and campus-run competitions and partnerships supplied the funding and visibility to scale an idea into civic impact. Along the way she’s also been part of the Educational Strategic Plan task force shaping DVC’s goals through 2031 — bringing a student voice to decisions that will affect future cohorts.
This is the long arc donors and alumni help sustain. Legacy gifts, endowed internships, program support, and community partnerships don’t just fund one semester’s activities — they create touchpoints where ambition meets resources, where a spontaneous pitch can become a public-health tool, and where a classroom encounter becomes a lifetime of service. Anya’s wins — stipend, board nominations, and growing collaborations with local nonprofits — trace back to a campus ecosystem supported by alumni mentors, faculty advisors, and community funders.
For alumni and donors: your continued investment pays forward in ways that ripple for years. The next student who walks into an info session, signs up for a club, or accepts a small stipend may be the person whose idea strengthens transit safety, improves county mental-health response, or helps shape the college’s next five-year strategy.
Help keep that arc going. Support DVC programs that connect learning to real-world leadership: fund student stipends and pitch competitions, mentor student clubs, or contribute to endowed internships that turn remembrance into momentum. Every gift and every volunteer hour turns a single semester into a legacy of impact.
