Provided

Christina Roberti, Svante Myrick and Samuel Coleman attend the Student United Way Retreat Sept. 7.

Young people have the creativity, energy and moral authority to lead, said Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick ’09, Sept. 7, urging about 75 students attending the international Student United Way Leadership Retreat to “take the reins of leadership” in increasing their peers’ awareness of and involvement in the United Way.

“Get in there and be the example of the good you want to see,” he said.

Myrick, who volunteered for the Cornell Student United Way Campaign as an undergraduate, accepted an invitation from Tompkins County United Way leaders to deliver a keynote address at the retreat, held in Alexandria, Va. He said in an interview later that “students have the mental agility to imagine a world different from the status quo and to be brave enough to make the leap from the world as it is to the world that can be.”

They can draw from the same energy that it takes to stay up all night studying to confront the greatest problems in society, Myrick said. “The story of our country is not just a story of great heroes acting alone, but of millions of people working behind the scenes. It’s what makes our country worth living in,” he said.

Also attending the retreat were Cornell Student United Way Campaign co-chairs Samuel Coleman ’15 and Christina Roberti ’14, who attended a briefing and discussion on providing support for student success by the White House Office of Public Engagement. Said Coleman: “The biggest thing I took away from the retreat was ‘inspiration.’ After hearing all the stories about projects other student chapters have undertaken, I am now refueled and eager to see just how big an impact in the Cornell community our own Student United Way can make.”

Roberti said she was impressed by the variety of Student United Way organizations that make up United Way Worldwide. “Some Student United Ways see a lack of volunteering organizations on campus and focus on getting their peers out into the community. Cornell has a myriad of student volunteering groups, so our Student United Way focuses its efforts on fundraising, the money from which provides high school students in the area with paid internships at local nonprofit organizations, she said. One of these fundraising efforts, the seventh annual A Cappella United concert, will be held Sept. 27 at 7 p.m. in Bailey Hall and is open to the public.

The White House briefing featured presentations on such issues such as health care, education and healthy living from advisers on President Barack Obama’s executive staff. “It helped reinforce the idea that even though I am just one student, in one organization, at one school, I can still make a difference, my voice can be heard by those in the government, and I can enact lasting change in the place I live,” Coleman said.