Welcome to GIAC – Greater Ithaca Activities Center

Team Leaders:
Inshita Wij (iw38@cornell.edu) - Pee-Wee Program
Alicia Wiprovnick (aew74@cornell.edu) - Youth Program
Meghan Smith (mls267@cornell.edu) - Pre-Teen Program

Site Supervisor: Sean Norman (snorman@cityofithaca.org)

Location
GIAC- The greater Ithaca activity center is located at 318 North Albany Street, easily accessible by TCAT bus number 10 or 30 from the Cornell campus. It is easily accessible by foot from Ithaca commons, being only two blocks away.

Timings for volunteers
Mon-Thurs: 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Friday: 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Students and volunteer involvement
GIAC houses children and youth from the age group of 4 yrs to 14 yrs. The volunteers can choose to work with any age group. The activities undertaken by volunteers range from playing with kindergarten children to helping the older students with homework. In the afternoon, we help the children with their homework and try to organize educational activities if time permits. Towards the evening, we take the students to the dining hall and serve them an evening snack. After the snack, we organize games and fun activities for the children to do until they are picked up by their parents. We make sure that the last child to go home is not neglected and there is always something to keep them engaged. On public holidays and special occasions, events are organized, such as the Halloween day parade where we dress the kids up and walk them through an old age home in Ithaca. There are also Friday outings and game-days where the children have fun and we help them make puppets or Christmas cards bringing out their creativity while having fun.

When we volunteer to help the kids, we learn a lot from them and have loads of fun, sometimes doing activities that we may miss out on as an adult!! If you are good with children and like to have fun while helping others, GIAC is the place to volunteer!