Press Releases

WASHINGTON, DC - Today, Congresswoman Lori Trahan (MA-03) announced Thais and Lucia Stanzione, sisters from Stow and students at Hale Middle School, as the winners of the Third District’s annual Congressional App Challenge (CAC). The sisters’ application, FreeCare MD, was selected by a panel of local judges from a pool of submissions from middle and high school students who participated in this year’s competition.

“Every year through the Congressional App Challenge, we recognize the incredible talent and innovation of students here in the Third District,” said Congresswoman Trahan. “I’m thrilled to award this year’s winners, Thais and Lucia Stanzione, who created an app that helps address the health care needs of so many folks across Massachusetts. Through their app, they brilliantly designed a solution to connect uninsured and underinsured populations to quality health care. I’m grateful to every student who participated in this year’s extremely competitive challenge, making it a difficult decision for our judges.”

FreeCare MD is an easy-to-use centralized app that allows uninsured and underinsured people to search for specific free health care providers by specialty in Massachusetts. The app provides free care clinics’ names, phone numbers, websites, email addresses, dates, times, and hours for walk-in appointments, and available doctor specialties. The students interviewed medical students who provide free care at clinics and researched hundreds of sites for free clinics and health care providers to create this app.

"Our amazing friend Julia, who is a medical student in New York, is the one who inspired us to create this app. She is one of many kind doctors that provide free care to those in need. We hope that our app connects the free care doctors/clinics with the uninsured/underinsured and help people in need stay healthy," said Thais and Lucia Stanzione.

Background:

Trahan’s office invited several STEM experts from the Penguin Coding School in Acton, MA to judge the challenge: Yumio Saneyoshi, Founder and Owner, Dong Mei Sarafan, Head Teacher, and Sarah Wharton, Instructor. The Congressional App Challenge began in 2013, and has inspired over 40,000 students across all 50 states to program an app.

###