Mount Saint Mary College students (left to right) Emily Hadden of Newburgh, N.Y.; Esteban Meza of Montgomery, N.Y.; and Lucian Forte of New Windsor, N.Y. show off their winning designs for the 2026 Habitat for Humanity of Greater Newburgh Walk for Housing T-shirt design contest.
A design by Mount Saint Mary College student Esteban Meza of Montgomery, N.Y. will be featured on the T-shirts for Habitat for Humanity of Greater Newburgh’s upcoming Walk for Housing on Sunday, April 26.
The winning artwork was selected from a competition open to Mount students. Participants in the Walk for Housing will wear the official event T-shirt featuring the winning design as they raise funds to support the local Habitat affiliate’s building projects in the City of Newburgh.
Meza, a junior Game Programming major, took first place. His winning design centered on an image of a key, a symbol deeply associated with the mission of Habitat for Humanity.
Since Meza wasn’t expecting his design selected when he submitted it – he cited stiff competition from his classmates – he was even more excited to snag the win.
“I’d never really designed a T-shirt before,” Meza explained. “I wasn’t expecting to win at all, but I gave it my best shot and lo and behold, it worked.”
Participants in the 27th annual Walk for Housing can secure a shirt with Meza’s design for contributing $20 or more to the effort. The walk, which starts and ends at the Mount, will kick off at 2 p.m. Participants will follow a route that features a history-filled tour of houses built by Habitat Newburgh. To join, visit www.habitatnewburgh.org to register as an individual or a team.
Mount Graphic Design major Emily Hadden of Newburgh, N.Y. earned second place with a shoe/house hybrid design, and Digital Media Production major Lucian Forte of New Windsor, N.Y. took third with an anthropomorphic house design.
Hadden, a member of the Mount’s volleyball team, says her design was the result of an intensive creative process involving numerous iterations.
“I made so many revisions – more than I can count,” she explained. “I had one with a key, one with a shoe, and I was like, ‘What if I combined the two of them?’ Like the old lady who lived in a shoe... I just started over from scratch and I fell in love with this idea.”
Forte, a Digital Media Production major who recently interned with Choice Films, says the design was a playful and literal take on the event’s title.
“I made a fun little character,” Forte explained: a house with legs. “The event is walking for housing, so I did a doodle of like a house walking. It’s not my first design, but it looked the best.”