Archive: Around Town

United Way of Tompkins County held the first annual Youth Venture Community Panel on Monday, April 28 at the Ithaca College Business School. This panel showcased three Social Ventures created by high school students at Dryden Central School and the Lehman Alternative Community School. The Youth received constructive feedback from four community panelists. All three teams successfully completed the Community Panel and will receive seed funding from the Ithaca College and Cornell University Student United Way teams to help launch their Ventures.

United Way of Tompkins County partnered with Ashoka’s Youth Venture, Lehman Alternative Community School and Dryden Central Schools to implement the inaugural United Way Youth Venture program this past Fall. Youth Venture inspires and invests in teams of young people to start and lead their own social ventures. This enables young people to learn that they can lead social change and be powerful long into adulthood. United Way of Tompkins County Youth Venture is made possible by a generous grant from SimplexGrinnell.

Since November, thirteen high school students have been working with adult coaches to design and implement a social venture. These ventures must be new, have a community benefit, be led by a team of young people, and have a viable and sustainable business plan.


The Honest Beauty Project, created by Marlena Doerr and Ilana Wallenstein of Lehman Alternative Community School, is a collection of pictures on a Facebook page used in an effort to fight the rigid and often distorted, media portrayal of ‘traditional’ beauty. Pictures are posted of individuals holding a whiteboard that reads “I am beautiful because….” Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick is pictured on the site with his whiteboard reading “I am beautiful because I serve.” They currently have almost 900 followers.

The Get Real project, created by Francesca Merrick and Sheila Brown of Lehman Alternative Community School, is a collection of resources, tools and activities for elementary school students that teach gender equality, respect, individuality and empowerment. They plan on creating a website for teachers to access Get Real curriculum and activities in order to integrate gender equality into their teaching.


Dryden Youth Venture Club: 6th Grade Experience, created by a team of nine Dryden Central School students, will create an after-school club for 6th graders that prepares students for success in the 7th grade. This club will be run by upperclassman and focus on fitness and health awareness, community involvement, academic support, and animal care. They plan to pilot this program in May 2014. Team members include Josh Hutchinson; Jamie Mullins; Medina Lojic; Taylor Burk; Kara Johnson; Lexi Griffin; Laura Parker; Marli Hammond; and Troy Sutfin.

Students worked with adult coaches to develop and refine skills needed to design and launch their Venture. Youth Venture coaches are Jon C. Raimon, Lehman Alternative Community School; Linda Bruno, Dryden High School; Heather Lane, Purity Ice Cream and Ithaca College; Megan Morris, Student, Ithaca College; and Dominick Recckio, Ithaca College Student United Way.

The Youth Venture students received useful feedback from panelists during the Community Panel. Panelists offered insight into financial management, planning, leadership and goal-setting. The panel members were: Heather D. Filiberto, VP & Director of Economic Development Services, Tompkins County Area Development; Dale B. Johnson, Executive Director, Hospicare and Palliative Care Services of Tompkins County; James H. Quest, Founder & CEO, QA Bolt Beverages, LLC; and James Brown, President, United Way of Tompkins County.  

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