Atlanta Grad Student Wins $25,000 For Essay On ‘Common Ground’

Published: December 16, 2004

BALTIMORE (CNS) -- Adam Meredith-Ployd, a graduate student at Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, has been named the grand prizewinner of $25,000 in the first Reaching Common Ground essay contest.

The contest asked students 16 to 22 years old to write an original essay on how Christians and Jews share a common bond—whether through history, faith or current events.

Meredith-Ployd, 22, said he would use the prize money to pay some bills and pursue his goal of ordination as a United Methodist minister. His winning essay is posted on the Internet at:

www.reachingcommonground.com.

Dorothy Levinson, a 19-year-old from Marlboro, Vt., and a student at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., took second place and a $10,000 prize.

There also were 10 third-place winners, each of whom received $5,000, and 15 winners of fourth place and $1,000 each. Natalie Henderson, 21, of Peachtree City was a third-place winner.

The essay competition was sponsored by Reaching Common Ground, a nonprofit endeavor founded by 25-year-old philanthropist and student Elizabeth Goldhirsh to foster dialogue and understanding among people of different faiths.

“We are encouraged by the tremendous response,” said Goldhirsh, a graduate student in theology at Harvard University. “Our Web site had more than 2 million hits during the contest, and we received nearly 4,000 essays from students across the country.”

Working with the Baltimore-based Institute for Christian & Jewish Studies, Reaching Common Ground plans to sponsor another essay competition in 2005, perhaps expanding it internationally and opening it to those of other faiths in addition to Christianity and Judaism.