Next meeting of our Community Service committee is CONFIRMED for Monday. November 3 at 4 pm on Zoom.

Zoom Link: 

https://us05web.zoom.us/j/5603754521?pwd=d7oy5aIka6SicPQnSxhWbaWPyzJPks.1&omn=83793751459

Meeting ID: 560 375 4521

Passcode: GoBigRed 

  For a complete list of upcoming events, see Cornell Club of Washington's web site.

Specific to CCW's Community Service Committee Meeting...

Next meeting of our Community Service committee is CONFIRMED for Monday. December 1 at 6 pm on Zoom.

Zoom Link for our next meeting will be posted in this space.

Agenda for 3 November 2025:

Maggie:  Schedule our next 2 meetings tentatively as follows using the "First Monday" approach, aiming for no more than 40 min.:

• First Monday  at ,4    changed to  at  6 pm, December 1.     We will cancel if we have no new business.   

• First Monday, 6  pm for January 5

Maggie:  Review our raging success of the Oct. 12 staffing at DC Central Kitchen.  Did we have any additional learnings that were not described below in my 10/14/2025 entry?

Eric provided follow up to "no shows."

Check out the photo at Instagram.

Saturday, Jan 24  (2-4 pm) at DC Central Kitchen will be our next such event, preceded optionally at 1 pm by a social meet and greet time in the cafe attached so...

• mark your calendar. 

• Anye' at Central Kitchen confirmed our arrangement. However...

• Registration Part B that individuals must do like last time will not be available until they "release the dates" in the database. She will send me an email when that happens in coming weeks.

• At that point, we can easily post the event at CCW to gather CCW's 15 registrants and operate as our web page summarizes. (Maggie will get it posted.)

• It will be our January CORNELL CARES event, and... 

• Maggie is interfacing with  Erika (ena7   @   cornell.edu ) Ithaca for their official "Cornell Cares" support to publicity/ sign-ups. I have available last year's training powerpoint if anyone is interested in viewing it, however I might receive a "traininng' that has been updated for 2026 in the coming month.  Here is the Cornell Cares web page.  You will see that when our details are finalized, we can submit the event for posting on their 2026 form there, which Maggie will do. 

Liz:  Coat Drive for a charity?  Ride it  on an existing coat drive?  Maggie did not explore this yet:  Thrive Coat Drive initiative and resources to run a coat drive. Maybe we could have a plan to announce CCW's participation no later than Nov. 20. Otherwise, we can apply the research next year. 

Elysa:  shared some materials useful for staffing an additional event:

1. "I have volunteered at the Capital Area Food Bank.  I reached out to them about having a group of us volunteer after our August committee meeting.  One of the challenges is that they don’t open up registration until a month prior.  But, if we picked a month we wanted to volunteer, I could try on the first day of the month prior to get slots.  I will forward you the email I got back under separate cover."

2. "Another food insecurity event I participated in last year marries volunteering and running for a cause.  I know you like to run.  I registered people on Thanksgiving day to race or walk.   I’m attaching a photo about the event below to enable you to find it on the web.  SOME is So Others Might Eat. My daughter and I found it a rewarding morning.  Perhaps, we could get Cornell folks to come." 
   
   Maggie has put the event onto the CCW Running Group's Schedule to encourage sign-ups.

Maggie:  Two runners from the CCW Running Group ran the Marine Corps Marathon as charity-fundraisers. They earned over $4000 total for Alzheimers Association and for Stop Soldier Suicide.  Andres and Yi from the running group organized a spectating group to come out to Mile 19. Not many signed up, but folks had fun.  

• Thoughts on running a charity run in the spring like last June's Community Cares?  --  Did we ever shift that money over to AA?  Maggie needs to follow up.

• What do we think of running events as fundraisers for causes where we charge a participation fee that goes straight to charity?

• Amazing Race: a SERIES of community service challenges?  Maggie complicates things!

Maggie:  I'm promoting Turkey Trots (fundraising runs) at the CCW Running Page. Thanks Elysa for your addition!  We will resume Art Gallery Walks for Federal Workers and First Responders after the federal shut-down shakes out.  I have a really vague idea of maybe making an "Amazing Race" challenge that enables families to set goals for attending things CS oriented. But I am likely complicating things and the Amazing Race concept might translate into something BROADER for CCW that generates buzz/ orientation / belonging / social activity / online-only possibilities for shut-ins instead and not strictly related to the Community Service focus of this committee.

Maggie: Outside the box:  What other CS initiatives could we promote or formally facilitate sign-ups?  I like adding them to our CCW web pages here.

• https://transcription.si.edu/  - Transcribing to support development of the Smithsonian Collection.

• Gleaning for AFAC - requires filling out form to be a volunteer just to see the calendar, but gleaning does happen all the way into November.

• Arlington Food Assistance Program - https://afac.org/volunteer/  (presently needs a deliverer who can carry bags of groceries and has own car.)

• Thrive DC - assistance to folks experiencing homelessness.  

Eric: Does our committee want to have an "idea exchange" event supported by a reading that is "service" oriented?  See some materials that could support such.  Low priority as CS, perhaps, and Maggie notes that a CCW member (Alan S-- she met him once)  has initiated this Nov. event "Happy Hour for Changemakers" unconnected to me or our committee. Maggie will attend.

Maggie:  Review for input the following DRAFT of Blurb describing our ommunity Service Committee-- how does it look? How should it be tweaked? Do we like the 4 goals for this year?  Supply your feedbak to "What our committee does" blurb below by Saturday night this week, please.

Past CCW's Community Service Committee Meeting records...

10/14/2025    

1) At our upcoming Board Meeting, we will review our successful Oct. 12 staffing of DCCK:

• It was a huge success after lots of learning and inter-organization communication about DCCK's registration system that adds a second registration procedure and database.  Sign-up procedures were documented here for future use.

• We had a mixture or individuals, a couple, and a Cornellian mom with 5 teenager students she was assisting to earn their community service hours.  

• DCCK runs a very well organized operation, and it was a 4 hour shift.

• 4 of our 15 Cornell sign-ups did not show up; one followed up afterward with apologies.  However, there was sufficient staffing because DCCK had a separate group of 15 attending to fill in gaps.  Still, the frequency with which I experience no shows across events is concerning.

• We have reserved SATURDAY, January 24, 2-4 pm for our next shift. We will conduct the event as our January "Cornell Cares" and communicate the PR to Ithaca proactively.

• For anyone who is a returning volunteer to DCCK, the registration process going forth becomes simplified because they have already set up accounts with DCCK.

• The event was led by Eric Braun, Elysa Graber-Lipperman and Maggie Carpenter. It was TRULY a team- developed event.

2) Two Cornell Club members with support and impetus of our CCW Running Group are running the Marine Corps Marathon as fund-raising efforts for charities:  Stop Soldier Suicide is Maggie's campaign and has raised the goal of over $1500 with the help of Cornellians who attended CCW events and were moved by the cause. Alzheimer's Association is supported by Kassandra Jordan '23 and has met its goal. $1020 raised so far, (and Kassandra recruited a friend to join her for the run. )

Cornellians can participate in the Marathon Fundracing by donating at the running page and/or cheering at the "Spectator Event for Cornellians" on race day-- Sunday October 26 approximately 10:15-1:15 pm, with some coming well beforehand to cheer the race's elite runners. We have leaders from our running group (Andres '24 and Yi, '25) who will gather Cornellians to ring the cowbell for Kassandra and Maggie at the bend of the 19th mile as they attempt to "beat the bridge."   See organizing details at calendar on the Running Page for CCW. One location will be on the National Mall just east of the Washington Monument where the race course bends from Jefferson onto 14th Street SW.  We will put a sign-up under "Events" so that our leaders can collect registrations and know whom to look out for, building it into a social event . Our running group is linked from CCW's home page. A second group might organize near Mile 22 in Crystal City-- we'll see.

3) As VP of CS, I will have confidence that we can run successful community service events when we increase CCW membership and explore the means of reducing "no shows." 

4) I am interested in offering another noontime, weekday Art Gallery Walk for federal workers and first responders before New Years, but the plans are on hold during the federal shut-down.

5) Our committee will likely lead by example and make a post on our CCW calendar to announce when our next committee meeting will be. I would love to draw in additional CCW membership into organizing our events.  If someone sends me the registration list for the recent happy hours, I could make a direct appeal to those young alums.

6) I am curious about people's experiences with clothing  or "winter coat" drives if anyone has contacts in the community with whom our committee could connect. We could also simply focus and link to the drop-off point of an already organized drive.  I can start planning 6 weeks out but typically not with less time than that.

7) Next meeting of our Committee?  

1. • Before the Nov. 11 CCW Board Meeting is a good idea. 

   • Let's TENTATIVELY pencil in a 40 minute Zoom meeting for Wed. November 5 at 4 pm
     Monday. November 3 at 4 pm on Zoom
     (with fall back to possibly 4pm on Friday, Nov. 7 to apply reflections and develop some goals for the next few months.  I will post the Zoom Link on this page.

   • (Feel free to suggest a few better timings for that meeting as we get closer and we'll see what works for the most numbers. For example, I can do Election Day before noon. Maggie's schedule is usually more flexible than others' now that I'm a retired slacker. )
     
     (I am very HAPPY to have everyone to my home in Falls Church at a time that works for all. I love having people here-- a 15 minute from the West Falls Church Metro, however.)

Meantime, e-mail me anything for the agenda including your ideas to conduct Community Service events from January onward.

10/5/2025 Update from Maggie: 

October 12's Staffing of DC Central Kitchen

Many MANY thanks for the leadership of Eric and Elysa for making this event come to be!!! Since our last meeting, I did some tech trouble-shooting with Anye'.  The conversation led me to believe that she is not techy and not answering all my questions or connecting me to her tech support, but offered, instead, stop-gap to ensure success at our first event.  She applied one of my tips on the administrative side of the portal and I kind of think that doing so will help her help other groups moving forward, and importantly, help CCW run registration smoothly in January.  (I just want to avoid frustrating our membership and figure out if our instructions are rock solid. I think they are now, but could use the help of Eric or Faiz to see if Part B works for THEM.)

• I had a phone call with Anye' at DC Central Kitchen this past week when me...

• reconciled the 12  registrations we have so far with the DCCK list for the Cornell-specific Oct. 12 list that the database recorded. Discovered that most of our registrants have not created DCCK accounts in order to collect the waivers. 

• I sent prompts to those folks to tackle that. Anye' is able to "back office" complete their registrations and did for one or two, but cannot complete those for people who do not have CCW accounts. It's all fine. We will have staff enough. People can sign their waivers and sort it all out when they arrive for the event if we don't accomplish it proactively prior to the event start.

• I got help from Steve P to understand the membership status of adults registered that did not include CCW members in our directory (were they phony sign-ups? No, they are guests of solid registrations. There is a 6-person group led by one CCW member who hopefully will all show!)

• Anye' assured me that there is a means to create DCCK accounts when people arrive to volunteer. She has people to help with the tech at the 11th hour.

• Working with Steve P. I updated the language of our Oct 12 event posting to urge more urgently that registrants create DCCK accounts (Part B)  as an immediate step to follow once they get registered with CCW (Part A.)

• Unfortunately, he sent out a new event invite to 2000 Cornellians before he made the requested edits, but he corrected the posting as had been asked. People will encounter the updated wording in the process of their registration.  Maggie's page posting all event details and support through Registration Parts A and B  is something she can edit without a middleman.  She can post anything there the morning of Oct. 12, too, up until she leaves VA to attend the event.

• I learned that at least 2 registrants have done the entire Part A and Part B process without reaching to me for tech support.  Sign of success!

• At Eric's suggestion, I made more visible on the CCW home page our event sign up. This posting can be monitored to see how many of CCW's 15 spaces "are left" open for registration.

• Our middlemen to the data for registrations A and B are within CCW (Steve P.) and within DCCK (Anye' ).

• Maggie will continue work with Anye' across the coming week to verify that their records mirror our records for the event sign-up for Dec. 12.  

Planning for January's bi-annual CORNELL CARES 

1. I have had collaborative discussions with people from 2 Cornell organizations that are pursuing community service or specifically CORNELL CARES activities.  Cornell Black Alumni Association (DC Chapter)  is calendaring for first week January staffing of DCCK.  DC's chapter of Hotelie Alumns whose pres met with me indicated interest in collaboration on a community service event, and I shared info on our January target.  In both cases, our committee's relationship will probably be a bit more of "information and insight sharing" than deeper collaboration and logistical coordination. Why?  Preferences articulated by those groups as well as...

2. Given my personal schedule and holiday time obligations, I prefer not to plan something as early in New Year as CBAA is targetting.  I would like our committee to choose one of the following open slots so that I can set that up with Anye' immediately. This would be our CORNELL CARES event for January which I list in the order of my own preference:

   • • • Saturday Jan 24     2pm-4 pm  (at that time of year, it gives a measure of time to Maggie to communicate updates if overnight weather impacts transportation)

       • Saturday Jan 24  9am -12 

       • Sunday Jan 25      9 am -12   (note: conflicts with Church schedules of some of our potential volunteers)

3. Maggie will confirm the date with Anye' and get her to do the tech set up and searchable to CCW members.

4. Once our date is determined and confirmed with an accurate posting at CCW page with DCCK, Maggie will work with Ithaca to have it promoted in their massive PR efforts.

5. Maggie will work to get the event properly and completely posted at CCW "Events" calendar by applying all of this round's learnings. It will look a LOT like what we have for Oct. 12, but it will apply any new learnings.

Other Community Service Committee progress

7. Running Group (Links and details here) is getting closer to Marine Corps Marathon. Fundraising is progressing.  Feel free to send that web page to anyone who might want to donate.

8. Running Group did not get a large audience for the Coach General event that we hoped would be profitmaking so that we could make a charity donation. Cancelled it.

9. Running Group is promoting sign-ups to run or walk a Turkey Trot for Arlington or Alexandria since registration in both directly benefits those towns' charities.

10. Elysa shared by email some additional volunteer possiblities for our group's consideration.  I really appreciate that! It feeds my updates to this part of our CCW web site.

11. There's strong potential for Maggie leading a November Art Gallery Visit to honor federal workers (likely to be focused on Greek/Roman mythology as represented in art) as done in past. My goal is to have such a gathering as a community service activity once quarterly.  Feel free to suggest a "best date" if you want in. In contrast to the mid-week lunchtimes of the past, I will probably do a Saturday or Sunday event next and can't make plans till the Federal Shut-down is well over. Or I might just post the suggestion to hop aboard an event already posted by the Smithsonian. The later is uncomplicated for registrations.

12. Update: Maggie has offered mentorship to an area senior in HS to do leaf-raking as a high school club fundraiser. Maggie will follow through without impact to others on this committee or  in CCW, but it might spawn a minor opportunity for CCW members to come to my house for a November support to teen-agers who run a "Third Culture Kid" club at Marshall High School lin FFCty.  (REPEAT: It will NOT be necessary for CCW to staff it. That said, it's a chance for other Cornell Alumni to gain insights on how an operation could be undertaken by our club or led by a Cornellian's kid November, 2026.)

13. Maggie's schedule of CCW involvement indicates that it's best to target February onward for a next CS event. However, she can lightly advise and support someone else on this committee to take strong leadership to do something additional before February and also for Feb. onward.  I'm comfortable when we start 6 weeks ahead to accomplish the event-planning checklist... and avoid the hectic holiday season. We will be balancing in prep for January's Cornell Cares commitment.

14. Next meeting? Let's see how Oct 12 goes and meet before the Nov. 11 CCW Board Meeting.   Let's TENTATIVELY pencil in a 40 minute Zoom meeting for Wed. November 5 at 4 pm to apply reflections and develop some goals for the next few months. Feel free to suggest a few better timings for that meeting as we get closer and we'll see what works for the most numbers. For example, I can do Election Day before noon.
    
    My schedule is usually more flexible than others' now that I'm a retired slacker.  
    
    (I am very HAPPY to have everyone to my home in Falls Church at a time that works for all. I love having people here-- a 15 minute from the West Falls Church Metro, however.)

15. Meantime, e-mail me anything for the agenda, and thanks for helping develop big picture vision as well as tackling all the little details in ways that help others perform community service with CCW! 

9/8/2025 Update:  Eric has informed us that they can now take 15 (instead of 30) volunteers so we're going (more confidently) forward with that sign-up plan for CCW.  We have launched the registration through the CCW web site with the ability to link the waiver that participants will have to sign. Elysa and Eric and everyone else interested can use that link to sign up today-->  https://cornellclubdc.org/event-6322506

9/4/2025 Update:  Steve created the posting for our first community service event of the fall here:  https://cornellclubdc.org/event-6322506  as a placeholder/save the date. I will apply a little more detail, and most importantly, we need a sign-up system with 30 slots, so I'm inquiring with Eric to see if DCCK provides an online sign up or we should just register folks ourselves.

8/31/2025 Update:  With info gathered by Eric, we have scheduled CCW to staff DC Central Kitchen 9-12 noon on Oct. 12. Stay tuned for an event listing at the CCW web site to provide sign-up details, logistics, waivers and parking info.  Working doc.   Elysa has indicated that she will try to report our progress at the Sept 9 CCW Board meeting-- THANKS, Y'ALL!

8/20 Zoom meeting  3:15 pm Meeting Minutes:

Attended:  Eric, Elysa, Maggie

We discussed some Community Service opportunities to organize, including 

1. staffing for DC Kitchen and/or Capitol Food Bank (based on her successful experience with both in the past, Elysa will investigate setting up a staffing for a January "Cornell Cares" event that CCW runs, 

2. for World Central Kitchen, and apple gleaning (which can support Arlington Food Assistance Center, I think-- that Eric will investigate to create an event (for one or the other) for October/ November.
   
   Maggie will work with Steve P to post those events proactively for our CCW membership to sign up. 

We also discussed the value of engaging families for multi-generational participation. Some food prep activities may have an minimum age of 12, but it's valuable to make the events family events... and making them social for our CCW members, even if it means just going for coffee or lunch afterwards.

 Maggie has service leadership opportunities "in the can" if a Cornellian wants to engage their 10th or 11th grader to organize a very late fall leaf-raking fundraiser for a high school club, or Community Clean-ups. 

Preparing our event posting to generate sign-ups:  While it is overly detailed with some concepts not relevant to all events, this event-planning checklist can assist one to develop an Event Posting that Maggie can review/edit before we send it on our committee's behalf to Steve P (VP Programming) to post for our club members under Events.  (Also, as an FYI, Maggie has a lot of web pages and Google Suite knowledge if we need to web-base sign-ups in any way, like if we have multiple shifts for events or logistical details that need to be conveyed at the last minute. I don't think our first 2 events will be complicated in that way, however.)

Most of the agenda as it was originally prepared below is for informational purposes and we did not thoroughly discuss. Review for context if you wish. Thank you so much for sharing your ideas with our committee for forward movement. It's going to be a great year in Community Service!

Next meeting:  Maybe we'll target early November?  I don't think we need another committee meeting until after our first event when we can reflect on how it went, unless Eric wants to call one to help him lead our "harvest time" event. Rather, with your permission I can share our e-mail contact info wiithin our committee. I am available for a one-on-one Zoom meeting to bring Eric's investigation through to event-posting, but am more reliable by e-mail, frankly, while I'm traveling all Sept. 

By meeting next in November, we high five about our first success, can apply what we learned in order to nail the January Cornell Cares event.  Elysa, I will learn from Cornell / Ithaca what kind of details they need from us in order to take advantage of their PR systems and much larger mailing list across the DMV. 

 FYI: we can pick a target date, get Steve P to put it onto the CCW calendar as a "save the date" and fill in the details afterward.  So as soon as you find a date to make a commitment to an organization, lets see if our committee can attend on that date, and we'll fine-tune from there.

 This was our meeting agenda with important link:

Duration: 40 minutes. If business is not finished, we can re-open the link below and try for a little more.  Our next meeting need not happen before October-- thanks!

Attending:  Maggie, Faiz, Eric B, Elysa (for first 30 min.)  We might get another drop-in.

Focus: the vision for our January, 2026 "Cornell Cares" project, possibly associated with 

a) staffing a World Central Kitchen (WCK) event (Eric is investigating), or 

b) developing a means to serve a community center that meets needs of underserved community in Alexandria. (Faiz is collaborating on the second project development.)

In the future, if we need an in-person meeting near Alexandria's community center, we could meet here instead:  

Cafe Soleil or Cafe Urbino or one of these spots . If arriving by metro, hop on the free trolly to get yourself down King street toward the waterfront. The trolly runs regularly from the metro station where you see it out front, is FREE to hop on, hop off, and is for King Street and is charming.  Paid parking info. 

 
c)  Community Clean-up or maybe a clothing drive in October or November or January. We need a location and a leader for each of those events, so volunteer to lead other young alumni or folks who will soon be great friends!  If we want to grab attention, we could combine a "kick-off" to a food or clothing drive with a happy hour. HH grabs eyes on Instagram.

d) We might also be calendaring a book talk on Dream Hoarders (for the good of giving insights to people who provide scholarships to people in need. Morgann is a possible co-chair for such an event and I might be able to draft another CCW member who contributed enormously to the CCW book conversation we had on the title about 16 months ago.

e) Anne S and Maggie are meeting online in Zoom at a date TBD  to schedule the next Art Gallery Visit (supporting federal workers and first responders) or Museum meet-up.

f)  Doug R and I are firming up true "Service/Volunteering" opportunities with ParkRun. Possible easy volunteer op combined with a running social for Oct. onward.

g) For background on CCW's efforts for Community Service under Maggie's leadership since January when she was appointed VP/ Community Service - review Maggie's focus on attracting more membership into CCW for the purposes of charity fundraising and community service that use the brand new Cornell Running Group to create connections, buzz, and funds for good.  For depth and context, you can read the section way down the page called "Running Journal" from March onward.   

h) Maggie is investigating the needs and structure of BACK ON MY FEET organization (not only for volunteers to run with the Members, but also to assist with resume editing, workplace skills training that help people experiencing homelessness. But she is at beginning stages only. It is not a light commitment if one wants to volunteer with their system. But it's amazing help to folks recovering from substance abuse or other difficulties resulting in homelessness.

h) Significant computer science help is needed in the COMMUNICATIONS committee for CCW. Please send Karen names of Cornellians who could support her (and replace me as acting webmaster.)   We really need techy volunteers!

i) FYI, I support people planning events with an evolving and highly detailed checklist, so I hope it helps people feel empowered to put on events for CCW whether for Community Service or other reasons.

j) I strongly advise attending Board meetings for CCW as a means to see about increasing involvement and meeting  great people. To that end, I want to update folks on the status of our scheduling of those meetings by quoting a proposal shared by our new Pres Mark Fornasiero, but whatever is eventually formalized will be posted as "events" on the CCW calendar which makes it really easy to download the details onto a Google or Outlook or Apple calendar when you hit the registration button:  I look forward to providing more details at our first Board meeting on Tuesday, September 9th at 7pm at the Cornell Center. Pizza and beverages will be provided. This will be an in-person meeting to kick off the year, and our plan is to go approximately one hour and catch up socially afterwards at a nearby bar for those that can join. I would like to propose we continue having the meetings on the second Tuesday each month at 7pm, with approximately half in-person at the Cornell Center with the others being hybrid (highly encouraging in-person attendance when possible) at another DMV location, similar to how Gil and Mike graciously hosted them in the past at their offices.         

Blast from the past--- an exerpt from CCW's 2015 Annual Report

Community Service

CCW had another excellent year of service, with more than 150 separate alumni volunteers attending 14 separate events in the DC area. These events took place in DC, VA, and MD, and covered the causes of poverty reduction (mostly in the form of food banks and produce-picking farm events), pet events (including adoption events, facility care events, and donation drives), and environmental integrity (including environmental cleanups and tree plantings).

CCW celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month with a co-sponsored community service event with the Cornell Latino Alumni Association at a Catholic Charities emergency shelter. Over 40 alumni attended our sesquicentennial service event in November, where they cleaned the entire facility for the Washington Animal Rescue League, donated over 400 pounds of pet care items, and listened to updates from the College of Veterinary Medicine Dean Michael Kotlikoff and Dr. Elizabeth Berliner from Cornell’s Maddie’s Shelter Medicine Program.

Fall Service Weekend volunteers picked 1/3 to 1/2 ton of apples for area food bank and frequent partner Arlington Food Assistance Center. Our alumni volunteer hours mean a tremendous amount to food banks. We anticipate another “fruitful” year thanks to our dedicated alumni volunteers.