Chaffey College

Identify a Problem in Your Community
Talk to people in your community to find out what problems they are facing every day. Submit the problem you have identified for an opportunity to win.
- Overview
- Prizes
- Rules & FAQs
- Teams
About Chaffey College
Chaffey College is a public community college located in Rancho Cucamonga, California. The college is part of the California Community Colleges System and serves the communities of Rancho Cucamonga, Chino, Chino Hills, Fontana, Montclair, Ontario, and Upland. The college offers more than 70 associate degree programs and over 40 certification programs. Accredited by the Accrediting Commission for the Community and Junior Colleges, Western Association of Schools and Colleges, Chaffey College serves a diverse student population providing quality education that is affordable and accessible to all.
We are dedicated to supporting the many talents of our students through learning “by doing” in a wide variety of programs. The SolveCC Challenge fosters learning by asking students to work together and engage in real-world problem-solving scenarios.
Active Competitions in 2023
Identify a Problem in Your Community – Talk to people in your community to find out what problems they are facing every day. Submit the problem you have identified for an opportunity to win.
This competition asks students to work with community leaders, organizers, and institutional partners to research and explore problems that the community is facing. The challenge seeks to foster innovation, creativity, problem-solving, and collaboration by asking students to brainstorm, design, reflect, retool, and rethink while engaging with a wide variety of stakeholders including local organizations, college alumni, peers, and leaders from education and the community.
- Top Three Teams: $2,000 for each team who identifies and develops a pressing community problem based on the criteria.
- Next Seven Teams: $500 each for the next seven teams who identify and develop a pressing community problem based on the criteria.
The top ten problems will go into the problem bank for phase 2 of the competition – which is to propose and implement solutions to the problem.
Applications are reviewed based on listed criteria and finalists will be selected by a panel of judges.
- Relevance: A clear articulation of a problem needing attention in our community
- Innovation: A new solution, or a new approach to implement existing solutions
- Collaboration: A team approach that will engage community members
- Social Impact: A problem-solving opportunity that promotes diversity and inclusion and has a positive and measurable impact on the community.
Rules & FAQs
What is this Challenge about?
This Challenge is a competition between teams to identify a local problem and effectively convince others why this issue is worthy of attention and intervention.
What is the deadline for this Challenge?
We encourage teams to sign up by August 31, 2023, but will accept applications submitted after this. The final Problem Statement is to be submitted by October 31, 2023.
Who can apply?
At least one registered Chaffey College student must initiate the process, applying for a team to participate in the contest. The Chaffey College student must be registered in at least one course at Chaffey College during the Fall 2023 semester. Each team must consist of at least 2 participants. Other than the Chaffey College student, the rest of the team can belong to family, friends, other students, or any other member of the community.
The program is not available to district employees.
To Apply:
Click “Apply Now” above. Please note that applicants can click “Save” at any time during the application process and can come back later to fill in the remaining portions of the form.
What do you do during this Challenge?
Once a team starts the application process, they are assigned to a SolveCC Faculty Team Coach who will help guide them through the following stages of the competition:
Step One: Research areas of interest
Step Two: Understand the scale of the problem
Step Three: Create a Problem Statement
Step Four: Interview people associated with the problem statement
Step Five: Create the final Problem statement and submit it.
What support do I have during this Challenge?
Each team will be assigned to a Faculty Team Coach who will help guide them through this Challenge. Each team will be invited to a collaboration group on Canvas where they can interact
with others, post questions and discuss issues with their Faculty Team Coach. Teams can join a SolveCC bi-weekly Zoom call where they can learn what others are doing and have their questions answered by the SolveCC administrators.
What does the final submission for the Challenge consist of?
The final submission is a Problem Statement narrative. Teams are encouraged to also submit a video but this is not a requirement. Details for what a Problem Statement narrative consists of are answered in the next FAQ.
Support for creating a video can be found by talking to Faculty Team Coaches or through this link:
Click here to view tips on how to record a video.
Here is more information on each step of the Challenge:
Step One: Research areas of interest.
This can be done in a variety of ways including:
- A review of current events
- Visit local government websites to see what issues are being discussed
- Attend a city council meeting to get more ideas
- Talk to different people in the community to find out what problems they are facing every day and reflect.
- Post problems on social media such as NextDoor or Facebook Group and ask for input. Read people’s posts to find out what issues are bothering them the most.
- Set up a brainstorming session with your friends/family to talk through everyone’s ideas.
Once you have identified an area of interest, you can explore this by accessing reliable sources of information such as:
- Online databases: Examples include JSTOR, Google Scholar, PubMed, EBSCO, and the Chaffey Library.
- News websites and magazines such as The New York Times, The Guardian, Times Magazine, National Geographic, etc.
- Government and NGO reports: Examples include the World Health Organization and local government websites.
- Reach out to local government representatives to get more information on the
topic.
Step Two: Understand the Scale of the Problem
Work with your Faculty Team Coach to understand the scale of the problem and the important quantitative data that you will need to put together.
Step Three: Create a Problem Statement
Teams can use several methodologies in writing the problem statement such as:
The N-MIT methodology
Negative Consequence
Magnitude of Problem
Importance
Topic
Here is an example of using the N-MIT formula:
In our community, approximately 35% of residents (Magnitude) are not currently participating in recycling programs (Topic), leading to increased landfill use and environmental harm (Negative Consequence). Given the growing urgency to address environmental sustainability (Importance), it is critical to investigate and address the barriers to recycling participation.
Step Four: Interviews
Choose at least 3 people to interview about the problem statement. Ensure there is diversity within the interview group. Create questions or prompts for the interviews based on the following framework:
- Who is affected by this problem and how often does the problem occur?
- How long has the problem been going on and is it disrupting the
community? In what ways is it disruptive? - Is the issue perceived as a problem by the community at large? Why or why not?
- Is the problem limited to a specific geographic area or is it widespread beyond the community?
Step Five: Final Problem Statement
Build the Problem Statement around the following prompts:
- How did you identify this problem?
- Who are those affected by this problem?
- How often does the problem occur?
- How long has the problem been going on and why?
- How is the problem disrupting the community?
- Is the issue perceived as a problem by the community at large?
- Is the problem limited to certain geographic areas?
- Who are the Stakeholders, those wanting this problem to be fixed?

The achievers
Team Members: Mjc Lead: Kameelah Scott Team communication lead: Franck Malgha Team reporter: Naomi Ayala Team values lead: Kameelah Scott Team brainstorm facilitator: Franck Malgha

Team Trash
College students looking for a way to improve our community.

Homeless Modesto
Our team is a team of three with one MJC student and two cousins.

Two Girls For A Community
(Vanessa Rodriguez): Full-time student at MJC, works at an elementary school part-time and studying to earn a career in Technology or Child Development. (Laura) Full-Time working mother of 3, works in the education field. Attends MJC and works towards B.An in Liberal studies and teaching credentials.

Nic & Jewels
We are teaming up to solve a major issue in the healthcare field. Trying to find a solution to overwhelming rates of depression in the Healthcare Field.

Cats With Caps
We are Central Valley natives born and raised in San Joaquin County. We greatly admire our home and strive to do well for our communities in any way we can. Social issues are a common household topic, and our mutually shared beliefs unite us. Brianna Robinson is an MJC student majoring in History and American Studies. Nicholas is a Stanislaus State student majoring in Psychology and Philosophy. We are proud parents of three little kitties who all have black belts in Taekwondo.
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Jacob Montgomery
Sadly, this team only consists of one person and that would be me. The problem that I will be covering is Inequality. I will be explaining how it came to be, how this problem is still around in 2022, and what solution I believe that can somewhat neutralize this very problem in our hands.

Rebooters
As part of the Rebooters team, we are seeking ways to repair unsafe sidewalks in our community through the help of Turlock residents.

Need a Hand Helpers
We are a pair of brothers that want to solve problems in the community that we see as unfair or unjust. We will do anything in our power to tackle and find solutions to our communities biggest problems in ordering for the people affected and the community to thrive together.

Low Income, Low Resources
The lack of awareness as a whole, invites the possibility of low incomes communities struggling for many generations to come. Our goal to spread information and be able to create solutions ourselves or with others. Allowing yourself the privilege can influence the perspective of yourself and others.

Team Vasquez
Our team is made up of two re-enrolled college students. We are married and currently living in San Mateo with our 1 year old son and our second who is due on October 15th.

Team
We are a team

Humanity for All
My partner in this project is my Mother Marcie Berlin, she graduated from college with a degree in Child Development and now works as an advocate for adults and children seeking safety. I, Samantha Berlin, and majoring in Studio Arts and work in Entertainment. We decided to address the current homelessness issue from a sense of familiarity. With the current economic crisis, we are all facing, it is likely that homeless communities will continue to grow.

Be The Change
We are a team from a small town, in and around this area we have noticed more trash and plastic littering our streets. We wanted to address the importance of this topic.
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Well being within the Agricultural Industry
Our team is interested in the issue regarding the mental and physical health of individuals in the agricultural industry. This silent issue is highly overlooked due to the high demands of the industry.

Forest Savers
The Forest Savers consists of a problem-solving team of individuals who are here to inform others about the effects that can occur if we lose more trees. Our team goal is to help make a difference in society and help others become educated. Charity options are listed below!

Central Valley United
MJC freshmen who experienced the effects of COVID on their mental and social well-being.

The Hustlers
This team consists of myself, Tayler Darden (a student at MJC) and my brother Hunter Darden (another student at MJC).

Team D
Our team researched and identified a women's issue in our community. We are concerned about women's health especially here in the central valley and we wanted to learn more about women's access to care here at MJC. We learned a lot about working as a team, and we discovered various ways that women lack access to healthcare resources. Also, we created a video and many troubleshooting efforts did not work. We were not able to compress the video file into 10 MB, not even less than 100 MB at that. Here is a link to our team video: https://youtu.be/GDqnYZ9d-IY

trash picker-uppers
problem trash everywhere