Black Students United receives grant for work with Southside Community Center | Student & Campus Life

April 28, 2025

 

By Laura Gallup, Student and Campus Life

While Cornell students have a long history of partnering with the Ithaca community, one group was able to level up their work this semester with a $5,000 “Engaged Opportunity Grant” (EOG) from the Einhorn Center.

Black Students United (BSU), a student organization, used the grant to cover costs for their ever-evolving mentorship partnership with Southside Community Center. The program allows college students to meet regularly with local middle schoolers to help them navigate academic and career paths.

During each session the college students teach a lesson and play a game with a theme such as imposter syndrome, self-directed learning or educational inequities. The grant funds have mostly gone toward purchasing food, supplies and transportation; the group is now able to take field trips to campus.

Kelly Ankoue ’25 (pictured in photos,) an information science major, has been a part of the program for the last two years and said she feels passionately about giving kids opportunities that she didn’t have growing up.

“I’ve witnessed a lot of character development and new confidence. Many of the children that didn’t speak up a lot when they first started, they began to over time. That touched my heart, because when I was younger, I grew up kind of shy, and so I like seeing that and seeing their growth.”

Cameron Smith ’26, an industrial and labor relations major who has also been a mentor for the past two years, said the program is beneficial for the college students, too.

“Cornell is so big, and there’s so many things up here. I never get a time to really go and see Ithaca. But through the mentorship program, I learned that there is a real community here, and it’s a community that looks like me. There are people here, there’s a community, there’s history.”

The program is a true team effort; the EOG grant application was submitted by Sharifa A. Wip, Associate Dean of Students & Director of Black Student Empowerment.

BSU has been building their partnership with the Southside Center with the support of other Einhorn resources including the Community Partnership Funding Board grants and the Group Certificate in Community-Engaged Leadership.