A group of San Rafael students on Saturday created an app geared toward bringing community gardens, bike paths and other health-promoting features to Marin’s low-income communities.

Tethered by headphones and stationed in front of laptops, the group scrambled to create a prototype of the app intended to benefit Marin City and San Rafael’s Canal residents.

“We want to build one forum where there’s one place where people can go and post projects, post them for others to see, and garner support, funding — whatever they need,” said Owen Bartolf, 16, a sophomore at Terra Linda High School.

The teens made up a group of more than 80 students from across Marin and the Bay Area who gathered for Hack4Health — a hackathon devised by the county and the Marin County Office of Education.

Middle school through college students gathered at the Marin County Office of Education and used countywide data to build apps and websites addressing Marin’s health challenges.

One group built a site offering a glimpse at Marin’s emergency medical services response times. Another group recruited young volunteers to assist seniors with picking up medicine and other necessary tasks.

“We have a lot of data available to us for describing potential threats to health in this community,” said Dr. Matt Willis, Marin’s public health officer. “We don’t always have the staffing or the knowledge to actually take advantage of that data. We’re inviting our young people to partner to help us find creative ways to make use of this really rich data.”

Vanessa Comins, a freshman at Redwood High School, worked with her twin sister and a friend to develop an online support group and resource center for people suffering from mental illness.

The group worked on a demo of the app that they would later present to a team of judges.

Comins said mental illness is relevant in a county where pressure is high for students to get good grades and gain admission to a high-ranking college.

“I definitely think it’s really prominent in Marin County,” she said. “There’s a lot of stress from parents to perform. That can lead to depression and other mental illnesses. I know a few people who suffer from eating disorders and depression and things like that.”

Supervisor Damon Connolly, who helped develop the hackathon, said the event was started to encourage coding education in schools.

“More and more schools are doing it to give kids skills in that area that is going to serve them well,” he said. “Really, the other main goal is to give kids the opportunity to apply technology to benefit their community.”

County officials plan on organizing the event on an annual basis, said Charlie Haase, director of the county’s Information Services and Technology Department.

After four hours of coding, participants presented their projects to a panel of five judges.

Prize winners were Leonid Karashanoff, Sebastian Boyd, Duncan Grubbs and Max Oliver Starr of Sir Francis Drake High School for Best Use of Marin Open Data; Anish Singhani of Monte Vista High School for Best Solution Supporting a Healthier Community; Kavi Dolasia of Tamalpais High School, and Saar Lipshitz and Baraq Lipshitz of Del Mar Middle School for Mobile/Web App; Peter Sakai of Gate Academy and Brandon Sakai of Redwood High School for Best Storytelling with Data; and Kentaro Cookhorn, Rahman Owens, Melina Johnston and Nate Cohen for Health & Human Services Special Prize.

For Bartolf, who first coded at 6 years old, he’s thrilled to see computer education gaining in popularity, he said.

“I’m really impressed with the recent push that the Marin County Office of Education has put toward computer science,” he said. “At San Rafael High School they have an awesome technology and physics program. At Terra Linda High School … we’ve also got the computer science program.”

Willis said while it is important that youngsters get away from their gadgets, Saturday offered a different scenario.

“This is a beautiful day,” he said. “We love having kids outside and playing as a matter of community health. There’s usually nothing healthier than that. Today it’s about being in here, working together to solve our community issues.”