Park Scholars Build Partnerships

Park Scholars share their communications talents across a variety of partnerships with local organizations.

Ongoing collaborations with local organizations

MacCormick Literary Project
Park Scholars visit residents of the MacCormick Secure Center in Brooktondale, NY, to help them tell their stories. Park Scholars give writing lessons and help the residents compile their writing and drawing into a literary magazine. Park Scholars thus help these residents find their voices, as they also help them prepare for life outside the facility.

Art Club
Art Club provides opportunities for Ithaca elementary school students to develop their creative talents and discover ways to express their feelings and share their experiences through the visual arts. Park Scholars design, organize, and carry out projects; they also solicit ideas from the elementary school students and help them to bring their ideas to fruition.

The Village
Through The Village, an organization focused on educational equity in Ithaca, Park Scholars work with school-aged members of the Ithaca community. Park Scholars have helped students develop a project to tell the stories of people who fought for civil rights, organized a clothing drive, worked together to empower minority students' voices, tutored students of all ages through the organization’s drop-in tutoring program, and helped students create social justice video content.

Device Advice
Park Scholars visit retirement communities in Ithaca to provide one-on-one technology assistance; this project was formerly known as the Connecting Elders with Technology (CET) initiative. Park Scholars not only provide residents of the retirement communities with practical tips and in-depth instruction on the use of specific devices; they also help to educate residents on the impact of communication technology and social media in the community.

Previous community partnerships—an illustrative sample

Community Connections
Park Scholars have worked with Ithaca College's Office of Civic Engagement to compile a comprehensive list of socioeconomic issues challenging the local community and the Tompkins County organizations working to address them. Park Scholars helped to maintain the list in an online database with links to a dozen community initiatives. This database was, in turn, made accessible to students, faculty, staff, and community partners, to inform and inspire involvement in those areas of public interest.

Holocaust Education Project
Park Scholars have partnered with the Ithaca Area United Jewish Community (IAUJC) to assist in the creation of a curriculum for high school students using autobiographical stories told by Holocaust survivors in the Tompkins County area. Park Scholars interviewed these survivors and documented their stories. This footage, as well as clips previously archived by the IAUJC, were compiled into educational video segments to be used by local high schools, in the classroom and online.

Megaphone Media Productions
Megaphone Media Productions has been a Park Scholar production house offering pro-bono media support for nonprofit organizations. Megaphone has helped create a variety of video, print, and online media resources. For example, Park Scholars helped to develop a powerful brand identity for the Ithaca College Natural Lands to go along with a digital walking tour Park Scholars created.

Media Club
Media Club has helped to educate elementary, middle and high school students about media. Park Scholars have designed and run media literacy programs and media production workshops. Curricula have included a variety of interactive projects and assignments. Topics have included broadcast journalism, web development, game theory, photography, advertising, film, among other media topics.

WRFI Community Radio
Park Scholars have created in-depth, multimedia features that explore local issues, analyzing the challenges involved and presenting potential solutions. Some of the features that Park Scholars produced have included: The Loneliness Project, a look at loneliness and its impact on mental health in Tompkins County; Feeding Tompkins County, an exploration of  food insecurity in Tompkins County; and Bridged, an examination of the housing crisis in Tompkins County.