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McKinley Grant-Past Projects

Past Projects & Recipients

First awarded in 2004, the Janet McKinley '74 Family Grant program is designed to encourage the pursuit of creative, entrepreneurial projects that have an impact on the grant recipient and the community at large.

Below are brief descriptions of past projects. Hopefully, these will serve to spark your ideas!

  • Eliminating Wasteful Demolition Practices, The Research for Change, Broome County, NY, 2023
    The McKinley Grant helped the recipient bring together high-school students in South Central New York to conduct an evaluation of harmful demolition practices in their communities and collaborate in designing policy solutions. The program collected construction waste data from a research site using photography, drone scans and 3D modeling. The high school co-researchers in collaboration with the Circular Construction Lab at Cornell shared findings with local policy makers suggesting preserving and adaptively re-using a city structure instead of considering demolition, to reduce excessive waste.
  • Improved Seed Varieties as A Mitigation Strategy for Climate Change, Kenya, 2022
    The McKinley Grant help the recipient’s research project which explored improved seed varieties as a low-cost approach to cushioning smallholder farmers in Kenya against adverse effects from climate change. Research and development of improved breeding of climate smart seed varieties can deliver great impact to farmers: higher yields, resistance to biotic stresses, climate change adaptation and improved nutrition.
  • Beef Donation Program, New York, 2022-23
    The McKinley Grant helped support the purchase of five steers which will be raised from calving to finishing, around 18 months, for the purpose of donating the beef to human concerns. Each steer will be raised by youth who already have farm knowledge and the necessary facilities. The project started by getting calves donated from dairy farms and will end with USDA packing processing the protein. The goal is by the fall of 2023, hundreds of pounds of beef will be dropped off at local human concerns and food pantries.

  • Medmune, Ghana, 2021
    The McKinley Grant helped the recipient's work supporting healthcare in predominantly underserved Ghanian and African communities, focused on the following objectives. First, the promotion of public health and medical education on illness, safety measures, and best practices via science communication and infographics. Second, the distribution of health resources and personal protective equipment to alleviate stress on local healthcare systems. And third, the documentation and reporting of physician information to improve future health plans, aid Ghanian and African physicians in better treating their patients, and produce data-driven insights in medicine.

  • Polici, New Jersey, 2020
    The McKinley Grant helped the recipient to streamline the translation of academic research into short reads written to be made accessible to readers eighth grade and up, using a combination of machine learning algorithms and human editors. This allows for academic research to stand on its own, balance the needs of researchers and readers while enfranchising millions. The reads were crafted with graphics that represent the data and ground the content in easy-to-understand, eye-catching visuals. Additionally, the AI component reduces the bias in content creation.

  • Upward Bound, Cornell University, 2020
    The McKinley Grant helped support programming for roughly 90 local high school students from low-income and first-generation backgrounds as they participated in 6 weeks of academic, co-curricular, and extracurricular activities. The recipient taught an elective course on habits and attitudes of leadership and organized a week-long leadership conference filled with swag, speakers, and workshops.

  • Scholars in our Society of Africa (SOSA), 2020
    The recipient (along with fellow mentors) used the McKinley Grant to work with students in high schools in predominantly African American communities and assist them with the college application process. Over the summer, each day focused on different activities and workshops involving topics like Formulating a College List; Navigating the Common App and FAFSA; College Essays; Resume writing, and Standardized Test Prep. The workshops also centered around leadership development, community engagement, time management, communication skills, and cultural awareness. As a result, the individuals mentoring the students were able to collect test scores, and common applications, enabling them to track the success of these students as they go into their junior and senior years of high school.

  • Happy Kids School, Ghana, 2019   
    The McKinley Grant helped improve the health and wellness of the Happy Kids community. The Happy Kids School serves to educate 180 children, while also housing 60 vulnerable children in rural Ghana. This grant supported three major projects that improved sanitation, reduced health risks, and increased the nutritional value of the daily diet.   
  • Anabel’s Grocery, Cornell University, 2019   
    The recipient used the McKinley Grant to support the re-opening of Anabel’s Grocery on campus. Anabel’s Grocery provides fresh, nutritious, and affordable food for all Cornell students. Through the store and educational programs, Anabel’s Grocery provides information about the connection between quality food, health, justice, and sustainability.   
  • European Refugee Crisis Research Project, Greece, 2019   
    The McKinley recipient and his research team conducted research with refugee populations in Greece. The first objective was to implement the Learning to Breathe mindfulness curriculum at refugee community centers in Athens. The purpose of this objective was to provide community center care-providers with mindfulness tools in working with adolescents. The second objective of the project was to provide a survey of the prevalence of traumatic experiences and ecological stressors among child migrants. The purpose of this objective was to publish data on adolescent refugee mental health in order for the international aid community to respond to the refugee crisis with positive, evidence-based interventions.