The 2007 Robinson-Appel Humanitarian Awards culminated in a dinner and awards
ceremony on Friday, April 20, 2007. Award semifinalists attended, including Aaron
Bernie ’07, Jason Corwin GR, Steven Gordon ’08, Jun Mei Hu ’08, Myung Sun Choi
’07, Brian Grossi ’09, Ali Laks ’07, David Rosen ’08, Eugenia Shmidt ’07 and Illeana
Sevilla ’07. Jun Mei Hu, Myung Sun Choi, Brian Grossi, Ali Laks, David Rosen and
Eugenia Shmidt went on to become finalists.
The award was established by alumni Gerald Robinson '54, Margot Robinson '55,
Robert Appel '53 and Helen Appel '55. The Robinson-Appel Humanitarian Award was
created to recognize and honor students who have had significant involvement in
community service by providing support for their projects, which address a community's
social needs. Three awards are given annually, and each receives $1,500 to further
a community service project that the student has initiated and proposed.
Listed below are this year's recipients and descriptions of their projects.
Eugenia Shmidt ’07; College of Arts and Sciences; Major: Biology;David Rosen
’08; College of Arts and Sciences; Major: History;
Project: Teach to Reach
Teach to Reach is a student organization that pairs Cornell students with schools
in the greater Ithaca area in an effort to provide local under-resourced school
districts with supplementary education provided by Cornell student volunteers
interested in teaching. The goal is to facilitate communication between Cornell
and the surrounding community by sharing what students learn in the classroom
with local school-aged children. Members construct their own curriculum about
any topic of choice that they then present during after-school and lunch hours.
Eighty students a semester have participated in the 18 months since Teach to
Reach began, compiling more than 75 lessons. In addition to high student involvement,
Teach to Reach has also collaborated with both campus and national organizations
including Teach for America, and have received local and national recognition
from media such as the Cornell Daily Sun and PBS.
Jun Mei Hu ’08; College of Human Ecology; Major: Human Biology, Health &
Society; Myung Sun Choi ’07; College of Arts and Sciences; Major: Biology; Brian
Grossi ’09; College of Human Ecology; Major: Policy, Analysis & Management
Project: Translator Interpreter Program (TIP)
The Translator Interpreter Program or TIP is student-run organization of the
Cornell Public Service Center that trains bilingual and multilingual Cornell students
and staff to serve as volunteer translators and interpreters for Tompkins County
agencies.
This year, in an effort to serve the greater language and social needs of the
larger part of the country, TIP plans to connect with students from other universities,
and hopes to expand services nationwide.
TIP promotes student leadership and fosters cooperation among the three groups
that comprise TIP - the students, the faculty, and the community agencies. Each
semester, TIP holds a training session for each group, publishes a cultural newsletter,
and holds an international dessert-tasting event, Taste of Culture. Currently
TIP is serving over 300 agencies and is continually expanding volunteer, faculty
and agency membership.
Ali Laks ’07; College of Arts and Sciences; Major: Government;
Project: Friends of Farmworkers
Friends of Farmworkers is a student-run organization affiliated with the Cornell
Public Service Center that provides Hispanic farmworkers in Tompkins and surrounding
counties with consistent, onsite English as a Second Language tutoring. Friends
of Farmworkers is a non-partisan, non-political group whose mission is to provide
service-learning opportunities to students and educational tools to farmworkers.
Friends of Farmworkers has experienced impressive growth over the past two years.
Current goals of the program are to strengthen the quality of tutoring provided
to farmworkers and to enhance students’ satisfaction with their service-learning
experience. In pursuing this goal, Friends of Farmworkers intends to build a
tutoring library that includes resources geared towards a variety of language
levels and topics, as well as providing professional ESL training to students
throughout the course of the semester.
