Please consider making a donation today to support The Sophie Fund’s work on mental health initiatives aiding young people in the Ithaca and Tompkins County communities. Sophie would have turned 29 this week, and we are marking the occasion to launch our 2021 fundraising campaign.
To Make a Donation:
Click Here for The Sophie Fund Donation Page
Current goals in need of funding:
—Organizing our 6th Annual Ithaca Cupcake Baking Contest in October to raise awareness about mental health.
—Creating two sister websites to advocate for suicide prevention and student mental health in Tompkins County.
—Supporting teacher training, a forum for parents, and student activities for the prevention of bullying and cyberbullying.
—Hosting an expert briefing on the Zero Suicide Model for Tompkins County healthcare principals.
—Collaborating with student organizations to campaign against sexual assault on college campuses.
A few highlights of The Sophie Fund’s work since our last fundraising appeal in 2019:
Tompkins County Bullying Prevention Task Force. The Sophie Fund is a co-founder and the current co-coordinator of the task force to combat youth bullying; the initiative has included public forums on bullying, a Bullying Prevention Day rally with school children, information kits for school administrators on bullying prevention programs, and efforts to conduct surveys to assess the extent and nature of bullying issues among local youth.
Tompkins County Suicide Prevention Coalition. After a period of dormancy during the Covid-19 pandemic, we collaborated with mental health leaders to resume the work of the coalition and joined the coalition’s work group on strategic planning.
Cornell University Student Mental Health Review. The Sophie Fund gave presentations in 2019 and 2020 on student mental health to review committees and another in 2021 to Cornell health administrators working on evaluating and implementing recommendations.
The Reflect Organization. The Sophie Fund in 2020 awarded a second grant to The Reflect Organization, a student group recognized by the Cornell administration for providing peer-to-peer mental health support through innovative campus events.
Advocacy Center of Tompkins County. We approved a grant in 2020 for a project aimed at addressing sexual assault on college campuses. The funds will enable the organization to provide training for the Enhanced Assess, Acknowledge, Act Sexual Violence Resistance Program (EAAA).
Ithaca Cupcake Baking Contest. The Sophie Fund hosted the fourth annual contest in the Ithaca Commons in October 2019, and then successfully pivoted to an online version of the contest due to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. The contest brings together college and high school students, mental health providers, local businesses, and the general public to raise awareness about mental health.
Cupcake Button Fundraising Campaigns. We organized college and high school student groups to raise funds for local nonprofits who support youth mental health. The campaigns raised $664 in 2019 for the Advocacy Center, which fights sexual assault and domestic violence; and $1,018 in 2020 for the Village at Ithaca, which advocates for education equity for black, brown, low income, and other underrepresented and underserved populations.
Social Media Campaigns. We collaborated with the Tompkins County Youth Services Department on a social media campaign for bullying prevention; we worked with the Advocacy Center and IC Strike, an Ithaca College student group, on another social campaign against sexual assault.
Ithaca College Interns. The Sophie Fund hosted six interns from Ithaca College during the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 academic years to write about mental health for our website: Meredith Nash, Hallie Ortiz, Anna Moura, Nicole Brokaw, Margaret Kent, and Lorelei Horrell.
Civic Ensemble. The Sophie Fund co-sponsored Delia Divided, a stage reading of a new play by Judy Tate exploring mental health in the criminal justice system and written with the collaboration of formerly incarcerated individuals in the Civic Ensemble‘s ReEntry Theatre Program.
Cornell Circle K. This student organization focused on community engagement organized a mental wellness kit fundraiser to support mental health in Ithaca and on the Cornell University campus and to benefit The Sophie Fund.
For more information about The Sophie Fund’s work, please visit:
Thank You!
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