Funding healthcare visits in India, creating modular shoes, helping high school students navigate the college application process, and handing out cash to brighten someone’s day are just a few of the examples of the ways Cornell undergraduate students said they’ll give back to the world with the $400 they’ll receive from The Contribution Project. The project will honor all the students for their contributions during an event on May 5 in the College of Human Ecology Commons.
“It’s really amazing to see the scope of opportunities that our students want to contribute to,” said Anthony Burrow, leader of The Contribution Project, director of the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research, and Ferris Family Associate Professor of Life Course Studies in the Department of Psychology. “They’re noticing needs on campus, in their neighborhood, and around the world. The funding could be a small impact, it could be large, but these students are noticing things in their world and how they can be a part of it.”
This is the second iteration of The Contribution Project. The first was in 2019 when 50 projects were funded by the Engaged Scholar Prize awarded to Burrow by the David M. Einhorn Center for Community Engagement (then called the Office of Engagement Initiatives). This time, nearly 100 projects are funded by HopeLab, a social innovation lab in California that supports research and services that promote youth thriving. Nearly every Cornell undergraduate college and school has a selected project.
Here are some of the projects:
College of Architecture, Art, and Planning – commission additional Filipino folk songs and expand the repertoire of 14 Strings!, a community music group.
College of Arts and Sciences – create an app that helps college students find the best roommate match; create a biomedical device capable of rapidly detecting a cardiovascular event; and help address medical misinformation with populations that are disenfranchised and have a hard time finding reliable medical information.
Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy – paint a mural of superheroes created by kindergarteners in Washington, D.C.; establish a program to redistribute pre-packaged food from campus eateries to students in need rather than being thrown away; Installing a Little Free Library on campus.
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences – Purchase a wheelchair and walker for a homebound elderly neighbor; hand out pick-me-ups and gifts to students across campus; make toys more accessible to individuals in Ithaca with motor impairments; working with CUCE-NYC to build a virtual reality platform for many major urban farms and community gardens in New York City to better understand their needs.
Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management – create an online, 360-degree college touring platform where students give personalized, fee-based tours; create a digital health and wellness platform that provides a safe, inclusive, and supportive space for teenage girls from low-income communities of color.
Cornell Peter and Stephanie Nolan School of Hotel Administration – create a financial literacy story that advises young readers on the entrepreneurship process; create an engagement program that allows Hotelies to come together and engage with communities around them; create and install several birdhouses around Ithaca to attract eastern bluebirds.
College of Engineering – design and construct a machine that takes plastic waste and converts it to 3D printer filament for desktop printers; create a ticketing platform for club performances at Cornell; create an SMS data tracking tool for agriculture that digitizes recordkeeping for small farms.
College of Human Ecology – install tree swings around campus to make it more playful, active, and help others relieve stress; create care packages for the homeless population; make low-cost diabetic testing strips and diabetic education materials available for the underserved population in Ghana.
School of Industrial and Labor Relations – purchase books to donate to the Family Reading Partnership; purchase indoor plants and sun lamps to help veterans at the Veteran Program House; support HerWeb3, a community to connect, educate, and support female founders and investors.
All the projects that were selected are listed on the Contribution Project website.
