About Us

The Smart is Strong Foundation not only aims to target educational inequality relating to gender in the Greater Ithaca community, but also to use this goal as a vehicle for women's empowerment. As young women who have been empowered by their education at Cornell, we are keen on harnessing the resources of the Ivy League to pay it forward to our community. Our focus in on high school seniors in rural or low-income schools, and are forging community connections to help these young women pay for SAT/ACT tests and college applications. We are also creating a mentorship program to help them navigate the often long and stressful college application process, and fundraising to provide some graduation scholarships at the end of the year to help them in the next step of their journey. It is our hope that our own passion for women's empowerment and education will lead to our advocacy and support for the same in Ithaca area schools, and eventually in our larger international community through fiscal support to foundations such as the Malala Fund.