The Sophie Fund thanks the 25 bakers who made their masterpieces and entered them in this year’s annual Ithaca Cupcake Baking Contest. Judging so much originality, creativity, and skill is a difficult challenge, but besides the three top awardees 10 contestants were selected to receive Honorable Mention Awards. Bravo to all! Honorable Mention awardees were presented with $25 gift certificates from the Downtown Ithaca Alliance.
Honorable Mention
Aušra Milano
Suicide Prevention & Crisis Service
Anastasia Beltz
Suzanne Beltz
Henry Bowes
Takoda Warner
Kate Bagnell
Sarah Scinto-Madonich
Renee Stilwell
Krya O’Toole
Aušra Milano’s entry: Fully edible (including the saucer) autumn-themed chai latte cupcakes in a waffle cone, with an Earl Grey tea-flavored sablée cookie base and brown butter and cream cheese frosting on top.
Suicide Prevention & Crisis Service’s entry: Moist chocolate cupcakes with strawberry buttercream filling, topped with dark chocolate ganache and the colors and words of the suicide prevention mission.
Anastasia Beltz’s entry: Cakes made with eggs from the contestant’s own chickens and flavored with honey from a neighbor’s apiary, with honey-flavored frosting and topped with honeycomb and bee decorations.
Suzanne Beltz’s entry: Gingerbread cakes with mango-flavored cream cheese frosting, topped with tiny gingerbread houses.
Henry Bowes’s entry: apple cakes with cream cheese butter frosting and caramel drizzle, based on a family recipe dating back 40 years to evoke the flavors of fall caramel apples.
Takoda Warner’s entry: Earl Grey-flavored cupcakes and frosting with lemon curd fillings, designed as a three-tier layer cake using stands made of brittle coated with toasted sesame seeds.
Kate Bagnell’s entry: spice cake with apple pie filling, topped with buttercream and pie crust, explained in the creator’s poem: I’ve always loved to bake/But am not really into cake/Cookies can be lots of fun/But feel a bit overdone/Breads could show off some skill/But unfortunately don’t fit the bill/So instead I offer you a cake/Topped with a buttery flake/And the flavors inside this treat/Bring the warmth of a seasonal feast/So now please feast your eyes/On these cupcakes in disguise/As miniature apple pies.
Sarah Scinto-Madonich’s entry: cakes made with homemade apple cider reduction (apples from Indian Creek Farm) and apple pie spices, topped with maple-flavored cream cheese frosting.
Renee Stilwell’s entry: chocolate cakes made without eggs or butter, filled with chocolate mousse and topped with peanut butter cream frosting and chopped peanuts and chocolate shavings garnish, from an old family recipe.
Krya O’Toole’s entry: pumpkin spice latte cakes with white chocolate frosting, decorated with flowers, favorite foods, and framed pictures honoring recent personal losses in the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) tradition.
Welcome to The Sophie Fund’s 2022 Cupcake Button fundraiser! Each October, we work alongside student organizations to raise monies for a local nonprofit focused on community wellbeing.
This year’s campaign is collecting funds for the Finger Lakes affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
NAMI is the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness.
NAMI-Finger Lakes provides free support, education, and advocacy for people closest to those living with mental health conditions. An organization slogan is, “With NAMI Finger Lakes, you are not alone.”
100 percent of the donations to the 2022 Cupcake Button campaign will go to NAMI-Finger Lakes.
Among its activities, NAMI Finger Lakes runs a HELP Line at 607-273-2462. Experienced volunteers answer calls for support and mental health resources with empathy and understanding.
NAMI Finger Lakes offers a variety of programs to support and educate community members concerning mental health.
The Family-to-Family Education program is designed to help improve the coping and problem-solving skills of family members, significant others, and friends of people with mental health conditions.
Other programs include peer-led family support groups and education sessions for those providing care for youth with mental health symptoms. NAMI Finger Lakes also engages in outreach such as talks to local groups and connecting with employers about workforce mental health.
In addition, NAMI Finger Lakes advocates for public policies for improving mental health at the local and state levels.
Click here for more information about NAMI-Finger Lakes.
Students raise money through various in-person activities (and provide donors with Cupcake Buttons) on campus and in the community. The campaigns have raised more than $5,000 for organizations including the Suicide Prevention & Crisis Service, the Mental Health Association in Tompkins County, the Advocacy Center of Tompkins County, the Village at Ithaca, and The Learning Web.
The symbol of the campaign is a Cupcake Button, because the fundraising takes place in the runup to the Annual Ithaca Cupcake Baking Contest hosted by The Sophie Fund. To enter this year’s cupcake contest, go to: https://thesophiefund.org/cupcake-contest/.
To donate directly to NAMI Finger Lakes, click here.
Kindness is Coming to Tompkins County in October! United in Kindness is a diverse series of events organized by the Tompkins County Bullying Prevention Task Force and aligned with National Bullying Prevention Month.
The events range from a student contest promoting kindness, a free showing of the film Wonder at Cinemapolis, and Stories in the Park for under-6s, to expert presentations on keeping kids safe on social media and dealing with domestic violence experiences.
The Student Kindness and Creativity Contest, sponsored by United Way of Tompkins County, invites local K-12 students to enter written word, visual art, or video submissions with a deadline of October 10.
The contest will be judged by United Way’s Youth and Philanthropy Program students. Prizes will be awarded and all entries will be featured at a Gallery Event at United Way’s headquarters at 313 N Aurora Street on October 28 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Contest information available at: www.uwtc.org/unitedinkindness.
“United Way is happy to support this year’s contest and the United In Kindness series because of the connection to youth and mental health, two key areas supported by our organization,” said Gregg Houck, United Way’s Director of Community Impact.
“In a time of so much division, having the opportunity to promote unity in our shared humanity and the importance of being kind to one another through this contest and gallery event is so meaningful. United Way looks forward to sharing these student creations with the community.”
The series was organized by the Bullying Prevention Task Force’s Brandi Remington, Youth Development Coordinator at TST BOCES.
“This series brings kindness back to the forefront as our community continues to heal from the aftermath of COVID-19,” said Remington. “National Bullying Prevention Month aims to bring awareness to the very serious issue of bullying in our schools and community. We recognize the problem, just as we recognize that one of the solutions is to celebrate empathy, inclusion, and connectedness. We are excited to bring attention to all of the great work being done in Tompkins County to build a community united in kindness.”
Join the Coalition for Families and Lyn Staack from the Advocacy Center of Tompkins County for a community presentation. Understand the challenges faced by people who grew up in homes where there was domestic violence and how it may impact their adult relationships and parenting.
Screening of Wonder10/11 @ 7-9 p.m.
@ Cinemapolis—Free Admission sponsored by Family & Children’s Service of Ithaca and The Sophie Fund
Watch an uplifting film for all ages about empathy and acceptance telling the story of August Pullman, a boy with facial differences who enters fifth grade to attend mainstream elementary school for the first time.
Join a symposium for parents about online safety for their children presented by social media expert Chris Vollum.
Big Brothers, Big Sisters Match Event10/21 @ 4-7 p.m.
Event open to Big Brothers, Big Sisters participants only
Participants will carve pumpkins and decorate cookies while they share stories about people in their life who demonstrate and embody kindness. To learn more about how you can be a part of Big Brothers, Big Sisters, go to: www.bbbsithaca.org.
Dear Parents: Sending kids off to college is an exciting experience. Naturally, our focus is on the wonderful opportunities they will have, as we look with pride upon their promising passage into adulthood. But these stressful times require parents to also fully grasp the serious mental health challenges their students may face, and be equipped to provide support.
What do parents need to know?
Though some may hide or downplay it, rates of depression and anxiety are high among college students. Many students carry suicidal thoughts. Sexual assault is prevalent among college students. Hazing violence as an initiation rite at fraternities and some student organizations is a serious problem. All of these conditions pose greater risks for students who arrive on campus already with a mental health disorder.
College psychological counseling centers are typically overwhelmed by demands for appointments, and navigating community mental health services and insurance coverage can exacerbate the stress.
In short, student mental health can be a complicated matter, and failing to deal with it adequately can lead to serious consequences.
The Sophie Fund has updated a guide to help parents—especially those whose children are attending college in Ithaca—better understand the challenges:
Top healthcare leaders in Tompkins County have agreed to form a steering committee to drive local implementation of the Zero Suicide Model, an emerging standard designed to save lives by closing gaps in the suicide care offered by and across healthcare providers.
Zero Suicide roundtable participants, July 20
The move came during “Zero Suicide Roundtable: A Discussion on Best Practices in Suicide Prevention with Tompkins County Healthcare Leaders,” hosted on July 20 at the Statler Hotel by The Sophie Fund and Tompkins County Mental Health Services.
The two-hour roundtable was moderated by Jenna Heise, director of Suicide Prevention Implementation at the Office of Mental Health’s Suicide Prevention Center of New York.
The 13 roundtable participants represented Cayuga Medical Center, Guthrie Cortland Medical Center, Tompkins County Health Department, Tompkins County Mental Health Services, Family & Children’s Service of Ithaca, Suicide Prevention & Crisis Service, Cornell University, Tompkins Cortland Community College, and The Sophie Fund.
The leaders’ agreement is a step toward fulfilling Goal 2 of the Tompkins County Suicide Prevention Coalition’s 2022-2025 Strategic Plan, adopted last February, which calls for “quality improvement for suicide care in all Tompkins County healthcare and behavioral health settings.”
The strategic plan’s Objective 2.3 calls for the formation of a “Zero Suicide Work Group comprised of leading health and mental health providers to share ideas, experiences, and challenges, and lead collaborative, sustainable efforts to implement the Zero Suicide Model throughout Tompkins County.”
Harmony Ayers-Friedlander, deputy commissioner of Tompkins County Mental Health Services, introduced Heise to the gathering “as we renew our commitment to the implementation of the Zero Suicide Model in our community, within, and across, our healthcare settings.” She noted that the county’s Suicide Prevention Coalition was launched exactly five years earlier with the vision of “a community where no lives are lost to suicide.”
Addressing the healthcare leaders, Ayers-Friedlander added:
“Your presence here today serves as a reminder of just how important this work is. Zero Suicide works. Because it gives us hope that we can make a difference, direction through a systems-based framework when faced with the complexity of human suffering, and real tools that help us at each step of the way. Today is a time to evaluate where we are individually as institutions and collectively as a community in preventing suicide through this model.”
Jenna Heise, director of New York State’s Suicide Prevention Implementation, moderates a Zero Suicide leadership roundtable
Heise opened the roundtable with a brief overview of the Zero Suicide Model and then walked participants through a discussion on the model’s seven elements: leadership, training, screening and assessment, care planning, treatment, transition of care, and quality improvement.
“The foundational belief of Zero Suicide is that individuals in our care, on our watch, need not die by suicide, and that suicide is actually preventable for those in care,” Heise said. “The way that happens is that suicide prevention and suicide care become a core priority for health and behavioral health. We have not done a good job of that, frankly.”
“We need to have that leadership commitment,” Heise said. Under the model, she explained, a leadership commitment creates a “just culture” for suicide care that relies on systemic use of best practices rather than leaving suicide prevention to individual health workers.
“It has to be looked at as a systems problem,” she said. “For too long, we have left it to the crisis team or to one outstanding individual clinician or social worker, and our systems, or the newest person, the greenest person straight out of school, who had no schooling in suicide.”
Citing examples of successful implementation of Zero Suicide, such as in the Henry Ford Health System in Michigan, Heise added: “It is an aspirational goal but it is quite attainable. There are folks that have done this work and committed to it, and followed this framework in implementing the seven elements, and they have shown that you could significantly reduce the suicides, by rate and number, within your healthcare organization.”
Heise commended Tompkins County’s approach to creating a “safer suicide community, wrapped around health and behavioral healthcare, including partners on board like the health department, behavioral health, large health systems, universities, higher ed, and so forth. That’s where you start to really see impact, everybody speaking the same language, using the same tools, the same best practices, the same framework. This is very exciting.”
Participants shared their experiences with various aspects of suicide prevention measures within their systems. They noted the importance of cross-system coordination and integration for suicide care, the challenge of staffing, and a desire for greater suicide-specific training. Several participants noted their continuous quality improvement efforts in suicide care but said they did not follow the Zero Suicide Model per se.
The Sophie Fund provided participants with a packet of materials about the Zero Suicide Model and previous suicide prevention efforts that have been undertaken in Tompkins County. The packet included the following items:
The roundtable was the fifth and final session of a Zero Suicide initiative launched by The Sophie Fund last November. Previous events included:
“Call to Action: Suicide Prevention in Healthcare,” an expert briefing on the Zero Suicide Model for Tompkins County healthcare leaders, on November 16 by Jenna Heise, Director of Suicide Prevention Implementation at the Suicide Prevention Center of New York.
“Implementation of Zero Suicide,” a suicide prevention presentation for front line managers, on March 24 by Tammy Weppelman, State Suicide Prevention Coordinator at the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.
If you or someone you know feels the need to speak with a mental health professional, you can call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 9-8-8, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741-741.
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