For many American college students, summer is a time to kick back and enjoy. But for Metzger Grant recipients, this past summer was all about the hard work of changing the world, one person at a time.

Metzger Grants, named for Stanley D. Metzger '36, were awarded last year to three students in the College of Arts and Sciences who intend to follow public service careers. The recipients -- Rachel Jacobs '10, Mara Perman '11 and Emma Tall '11 -- used the funds for projects in the U.S. and abroad.

Perman's Metzger Grant helped her fulfill the fieldwork requirement of her global health minor in the College of Human Ecology by funding her work with Support for International Change (SIC), a nonprofit devoted to limiting the impact of HIV/AIDS in rural Tanzania.

Perman trained at Cornell with a former SIC volunteer before heading to Tanzania along with two other Cornell students. Although she taught elementary schoolchildren and women's groups, her primary post was at a truck stop in the center of the village of Babati.

"A lot of people had never seen a white person," said Perman, "so we were a novelty." The volunteers persevered despite being yelled at, gawked at and disbelieved. Perman spent hours talking to truckers about HIV/AIDS prevention, marital fidelity and the stigma of the disease. By the end of the summer, Perman's group had tested more than 2,000 people in the village for HIV/AIDS.

This semester, Perman is founding a chapter of SIC on campus, hoping to inspire other Cornell students to follow in her footsteps.

Jacobs used her Metzger Grant to fund an internship with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force in Washington, D.C. Because of current events, the demands on the task force resulted in a shortage of personnel, so Jacobs was given meaningful work and responsibility. "I had to be on top of everything going on in Afghanistan and Pakistan very quickly," said Jacobs. "I learned a lot."

Jacobs' internship focused on women's and girls' issues in Afghanistan, and she says she did anything and everything on the topic, including meeting with ambassadors-at-large, representing USAID at meetings, going to hearings and researching improvements in women's education. Jacobs described the environment as "alternating between frantic and more frantic. I'm very glad I can run in heels."

"It's an experience that will stay with me and influence how I think and how I see things," Jacobs added. "It gave me a great insight as to how to look at development as a means of limiting or ending conflict."

Tall's Metzger Grant funded her travel to Yoro, Honduras, to work with NGO Salud Juntos on public health initiatives. She and four other Cornell students used education programs they'd developed at Cornell to teach children dental health and hygiene. "It felt great to give toothbrushes and toothpaste to all the children," half of whom had none at home, Tall said. Volunteers taught the dental program to women in the community who plan to teach it again every six months.

Tall also created a program on back and shoulder pain that she said helped many people with chronic and acute pain. "I was greatly inspired by several older women who told me that they never knew about stretching or icing," Tall said.

To prepare Cornell students to work with Salud Juntos next year, Tall plans to lead a class during the spring semester.

Linda Glaser is a freelance writer.