Seniors help troubled young men 'break the chain'


Mark Vorreuter
Josephine Engreitz '15

Student volunteers with GlobeMed at Cornell are selling “Break the Chain” t-shirts conceived by juvenile inmates at the MacCormick Secure Center 15 miles east of Ithaca and printed by Reconnect, a nonprofit that offers young men training, mentorship and employment at a Brooklyn bakery, cafe and graphics shop. Proceeds from shirt sales pay fair wages to the young men at MacCormick and Reconnect who designed and produced the shirts, and will support future social justice projects that help young people find alternatives to crime.

Led by Josephine Engreitz ’15, a policy analysis and management major in the College of Human Ecology and an intern writer for the Cornell Chronicle, and Eliza Baird-Daniel ’15, a biological science major in the College of Arts and Sciences, students worked with inmates at MacCormick to design and market the shirts. Inmates were introduced to topics such as business and entrepreneurship, community engagement, financial responsibility and self-empowerment. Engreitz first worked with Reconnect last summer as a student in Cornell’s Urban Semester program in New York City and said the shirts are a “win-win” to support young men in both locations.

“As a global health club, we originally wanted to teach the inmates about nutrition and health, but they didn’t show a great interest,” said Engreitz, who will join the federal Medicare Payment Advisory Commission as a research assistant after graduation. “So we tailored the workshops to issues they were most interested in, such as basic work and life skills that would help them re-enter society. It’s a way to address the broader systemic issues like mass incarceration and poverty that lead to health disparities and poorer health in low-income communities.”

Only a few dozen shirts remain from the first printing – buy yours before they’re gone.