Archive: Around Town

Cornell Orchards has long been known for its generosity in supporting the local community. So when the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to close, leaving many students without regular access to meals, the orchards' staff saw an opportunity to pitch in.  Throughout April, the orchards will be donating approximately 26,000 apples to two local school districts to supplement efforts to provide meals for students and families in need.

The newest project began when Eric Anderson, wholesale coordinator at Cornell Orchards, started talking with colleague Cathy Crispell, an Orchards technician, about an article that described the great need for schools to continue providing meals to local children during the COVID-19 shutdown. "During that conversation, we knew we had to try and help our local schools," Anderson said.

Photo by Emily Peters/Wells College
Aurora, NY - When Cayuga County's Emergency Services office reached out to local businesses seeking donations of personal protective equipment (PPE) to help those in our community serving on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic, multiple departments on campus jumped at the chance to do their part.

As there are no athletic events or in-person classes taking place on the Wells College campus for the remainder of the semester, our Biological & Chemical Sciences faculty and athletic training staff pooled their resources. The result? A donation of 27 boxes of gloves and 14 medical masks to help our local first responders.

Community Foundation of Tompkins County, Legacy Foundation, and United Way of Tompkins County have partnered to provide $15,000 in additional funds to help meet the needs of Tompkins County residents through the Salvation Army of Ithaca. The funds will be used to support food pantry, mobile food pantry, and other outreach efforts in direct response to COVID-19 challenges that our community is facing.

"While practicing enhanced safety protocols and social distancing, The Salvation Army has doubled its efforts to reach vulnerable populations," Anita Leitgeb, Donor Relations Director for The Salvation Army explains. "Our outreach coordinator is now serving at least fifty homeless individuals located in "the Jungle" weekly with snacks and water. Our food pantry is seeing increased needs daily and households can now call in for a pre-packaged food box. We have also deployed a mobile food pantry to deliver in neighborhoods. We continue to provide Grab and Go lunches on Saturdays as well as a meal to go on Sundays. Both of these programs are seeing a 50% increase in participation. We are providing an additional 300 meals to residents who live in local hotels. The Salvation Army in Ithaca continues to adapt to this fluid situation which changes daily and will continue to serve our community during this time of challenge."

From dining room tables and childhood bedrooms, Cornell University Law School faculty, students and staff are responding to the coronavirus pandemic by offering legal services to businesses and individuals in central New York.  The assistance runs the gamut, from helping businesses and workers in the region access new benefits to supporting families in immigration detention centers and working with low-income residents remotely to finalize their wills.  This effort to address the legal implications of the crisis has been coordinated by the Law School's clinical programs, which work with clients who cannot afford legal services. Faculty leaders of seven clinical programs have counseled clients, with the help of students working remotely from their homes.

"The clinical program is an entire, miniature law office embedded in the Law School that has been running for 60 years; within a matter of days, the staff converted it into an online enterprise," said Beth Lyon, associate dean for experiential education and clinical program director at the Law School.

Chris Gerling, senior extension associate, checks the still located at Cornell AgriTech’s food science pilot plant in Geneva.
In the battle to keep front-line health care workers, first responders and essential employees safe during the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly 40 craft distilleries in New York state have stopped producing their signature spirits.  Instead, distillers have turned to making a much-needed commodity: hand sanitizer.

"For distilleries, it's a fascinating landscape right now," said Chris Gerling, senior extension associate in food science at Cornell AgriTech in Geneva, New York.

Lee Shurtleff outside the DoER conference room renamed in his honor.
In a brief ceremony at the Department of Emergency Response last Friday, the DoER Large Conference Room was renamed as a lasting tribute to former director Lee Shurtleff, who is retiring after 32 years of service to Tompkins County. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, social distancing protocols were followed during the dedication.

Shurtleff, of Groton, was initially hired by the County as a fire dispatcher in March of 1988, becoming Director of Emergency Response in 2002, a position he held for 17 years. During that time, he spearheaded the County Emergency Management Plan and a consolidated dispatch center, merging four dispatch centers into one.  He was also instrumental in the construction and implementation of the 800mHz Emergency Communications System, creating true interoperability between first response agencies.

Cornell is leading a $77 million effort, beginning April 1, to upgrade the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).

The LHC is a 17-mile loop of superconducting magnets and accelerator structures that crashes particles together, revealing fundamental interactions of matter. The upgrade project will expand the capabilities of the CMS detector, which physicists use to study particles – such as the elusive Higgs boson, discovered in 2012 – produced by these high-energy, proton-proton collisions.

Through joint funding from United Way of Tompkins County and the Community Foundation of Tompkins County the Child Development Council is able to respond to inquiries for both baby supplies and child care scholarships for families in need due to COVID-19 impacts on their households. Sue Dale-Hall, Child Development Council's, CEO says, "Families need our help and we are grateful for the partnership with the United Way and the Community Foundation who have been quick to meet these emerging needs in our community."

Families with young children whose monthly household budgets have been upended due to business closings, lay-offs, and unemployment will now be able to access baby formula, diapers and wipes through the Child Development Council. Supplies are limited and can be requested by completing a simple online form. Once the form has been submitted, families will receive more information and an assigned pick up time.

The coronavirus pandemic has had an obvious impact on families, schools, businesses and health care providers. Less obvious, perhaps, is how it has affected community volunteers and the organizations they serve.  Many volunteers are elderly and have been sidelined by the virus, forcing the temporary shuttering of several food pantries in Tompkins County. As a result, approximately 800 households per month may lose food pantry services.

To provide immediate local relief, Cornell has partnered with the Food Bank of the Southern Tier and the Greater Ithaca Activities Center (GIAC) to collect and distribute much-needed meals for food-insecure families.  The effort officially launches March 31 from 1-4 p.m. at GIAC and will continue every Tuesday and Thursday during those hours.

(Bottom to top) Savanna Pasto, Diyah Rahaman, Toni Adams, Lily Helmer
March 16 brought a month long closure to schools in Tompkins county due to the Corona virus crisis. This put many families into the challenge of having to feed their kids meals they would normally get at school. Adding to that was the unexpected increase to families food budgets and the strong encouragement to avoid social setting. This uncertainty led Susan Tabrizi, Amy Frith and Linda Pasto of Lansing Lunchbox and Toni Adams of the Lansing Food Pantry to plan an emergency food distribution.

On March 20 and 21 over 100 kids received bags of enough food to last 14 days with shelf stable and fresh items including cereal, milk,eggs, fruit, tuna and mac &cheese.

Aurora, NY - Phi Theta Kappa (PTK) announced this week that it has included Wells College on its 2020 Transfer Honor Roll, in recognition of the College's excellence in creating and implementing dynamic pathways for transfer students.  This year's award was given to a select group of 122 four-year colleges and universities that have demonstrated success at providing a smooth and supportive transition for community college transfer students.

"Wells College offers its students a personalized experience, which—along with our generous credit transfer policy—makes the process of transferring seamless and easy for all prospective students, including those currently attending community colleges," said Melinda Slawson, assistant director of transfer admissions at Wells College.

While protective masks help protect medical professionals from infections like COVID-19, face shields add an important layer of protection.  A face shield is a piece of transparent plastic attached to a frame something like eyeglasses frames that hook above health care workers' ears and around their head to hold the shield in place.  Lansing High School teacher Jeremy Richardson has joined a group of about 100 Tompkins County volunteers who are using 3-D printers to create face shield frames to help battle a growing shortage as the pandemic strains medical resources.

"We have a contact with Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City," Richardson says. "We work with city hospitals that have approved a particular design. Then we make sure that we get some of the changes like the two piece clip-together design approved. The original design that was approved comes in a downloadble STL (Standard Tessellation Language) file. That file was made available to everyone in the group. We've been using the identical file on all the different printers, so all the finished products are exactly the same size and specifications."