Jimmy Aneshansley, left, and senior Sandra Irlen attend the Community Service Award ceremonies April 22 in Schoellkopf Hall. Irlen received an award for her work with Aneshansley and other athletes with Area 17 Special Olympics. Frank DiMeo/University Photography
"Too often we think that we need to get paid for everything we do, without thinking that there are other forms of payment, like the contentment in knowing you can make a difference," said Ithaca Common Council member Diann Sams in her opening remarks at the April 22 Community Spirit Awards ceremony on campus.
To recognize their outstanding contributions to the community, Sams, human service agency representatives and the staff of the Public Service Center gathered in the Hall of Fame Room of Schoellkopf Hall to honor 27 Cornell volunteer and work-study students and award them with service pins and certificates from President Hunter Rawlings. The students also will have their names engraved on plaques displayed at the center.
Renee Farkas, Public Service Center coordinator of community programs, and center Assistant Director Sarah Brown, organized the awards program, which is new this year.
"There are a lot of great service activities going on in the community, and because they are off-campus there was no recognition for these students before," Farkas said. "We wanted to be able to show appreciation for their efforts."
The Public Service Center, which helps place Cornell students in work-study and volunteer positions in 250 local agencies, received 45 nominations for the Community Spirit Awards.
Two nominations came from Rebecca Rundell, the volunteer director at the Paleontological Research Institution (PRI) in Ithaca, who was one of many agency officials on hand to honor the students. One of Rundell's nominations was senior Luis Ormaechea, for his contributions to the museum's education programs through his community work-study position.
"Luis has been an important example of excellence and innovation in our organization," she said. On his own, Ormaechea developed a booklet to help elementary and middle-school teachers teach their students about dinosaurs and to use dinosaurs as a means of teaching math, science and reading, she said, and he wrote a proposal asking the Community Partnership funding board to support PRI's purchase of new education materials.
Rundell also nominated senior Olaf Jensen for his community work-study position as collection assistant at PRI. "He dedicates all of his energy and talent to whatever project he encounters, from seemingly menial tasks like cleaning up the lab and lifting boxes of fossils, to cataloging and organizing specimens," she said. "No matter what chaotic situation he is thrown into at PRI, he handles it coolly and somehow gets others to join in. His enthusiasm for any and all projects is certainly contagious."
The Community Spirit Award ceremony will be an annual event, say Public Service Center staff members. "For our first year, we thought it was great," Brown said.
Here are the winners and the categories in which they were honored:
·Innovation in Service (Students who have initiated a project within an agency or brought tools or skills to the agency resulting in an enrichment of the agency's services):
Sarah Hunley '98, community work-study for Finger Lakes State Parks; Ronald Johnson '99, community work-study at Greater Ithaca Activities Center (GIAC); Luis Ormaechea '98, community work-study and volunteer at Paleontological Research Institute; Kate O'Sick '98, community work-study at the Human Services Coalition; Michael Wallach '98, volunteer at Louis Gossett Detention Center through the Cornell's Department of Education.
·Dedicated Service (Students who have shown a long-term commitment to a single agency or project):
David Choi, graduate student, volunteer at the Human Rights Commission; Aaron Deever, graduate student, volunteer with the Ithaca Youth Bureau/One-to-One Program; Stan Kozlowski '98, community work-study at On Site Volunteer Services; Archana Prakash '98, community work-study at GIAC; Rachel Sullum '98, volunteer at Community Dispute Resolution Center; Leah White '99, community work-study at GIAC. Click here for a correction to this listing.
·Excellence in Academics and Service (Students who have shown active involvement in the community while maintaining a GPA of 3.0 or above):
Leah Conn '98, community work-study at On Site Volunteer Services; Cori Cunningham '98, community work-study at the Human Services Coalition; Amy Wasserman '98, volunteer at Ithaca Breast Cancer Alliance; Christina Young '00, volunteer at the New York State Division for Youth's Louis Gossett Center in Lansing, through Cornell's Department of Education.
·Community Building (Students who have worked to build understanding of a particular issue across the community and have brought together various groups within the community):
Jenna Barrows '00, Leah Conn '98 and Joshua Wojcik '98, community work-study for On Site Volunteer Services, recognized by Women's Community Building; Elizabeth Harned '98, volunteer at Women's Community Building; Wendy Nash, volunteer at Cornell's Division of Nutritional Sciences; Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity, for its volunteers at the Special Children's Center; Manga Tatini '98, community work-study at Ithaca Rape Crisis.
·Star Performer (Students who perform their work with contagious enthusiasm):
Quinn Caldwell '99, volunteer for Finger Lakes Land Trust; Sandra Irlen '98, volunteer with Area 17 Special Olympics; Olaf Jensen '98, volunteer at Paleontological Research Institution; Kate Kopper '98, community work-study at Patchwork Therapeutic Riding Center; Elana Levine '98, community work-study at Health Planning Council of Tompkins County; Rachel Vreeman-Fick '98, community work-study with Educate the Children.
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