Ellen Kamp

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When she was 56, Ellen Kamp’s husband died of a massive heart attack. The one person who was able to provide her with the support she needed was herself a widow.

Seven years later, in 2009, Kamp co-founded the W Connection to help widowed women cope with bereavement and start rebuilding their lives. With her $5,000 Marigold Ideas for Good Contest award, Kamp plans to produce a video to let widows know they are not alone and detail resources and programs that can help.

Kamp, of Sea Cliff, N.Y., is the second grand prize winner of the contest, which is awarding five people each month through October. Here are this month’s other winners:

• Diane Claughton of Mobile, Ala., aspires to fight obesity in the South by teaching children how to grow and cook healthy food.
• Jean Cosby of Green Cove Springs, Fla., plans to mobilize volunteers to provide hungry students with nutritious food on the weekends.
• Jan Coulter of Sebastopol, Calif., intends to help a school in Thailand hire a teacher ($4,000 will cover a year's salary) and provide stipends for teachers who will prepare young Burmese refugees for college.
• Kathleen Fletcher of Pittsburgh plans to put the award money toward building a medical clinic that serves a rural village in Kenya.

Check out previous Marigold winners here.

The Marigold Ideas for Good Contest, brought to you by Participant Media with Encore.org and Road Scholar, was inspired by the hit movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which highlights what people can achieve in the second half of life. Winners each receive a $5,000 grant, and one grand prize winner each month gets the money plus a trip through Road Scholar worth up to $5,000.

If you have an idea on how to improve life in your community or around the world, enter the contest today!