Maribel Garcia award honors student expanding access to leadership

When Ana Loter '27 helped launch the Rotaract Youth Leadership Institute (RYLI) at Cornell last spring, she wanted local middle and high school students to leave with more than a day of teambuilding activities and community service ideas. She hoped they would see themselves as leaders.

For this vision, Loter has received the 2026 Maribel Garcia Community Spirit Award, which each year recognizes a Cornell student who makes a remarkable, creative and specific contribution to the spirit of humanity. The award was established by friends of the late Maribel Garcia '95 to honor her legacy of creative, inspiring and energetic community engagement. The award is administered by the David M. Einhorn Center for Community Engagement.

Loter's project grew out of Cornell's Rotaract chapter, which she restarted in fall 2024, recruiting student members, collaborating with six local organizations and holding more than 30 volunteer events. To make leadership development a more intentional part of its work, the group partnered with Ithaca Rotary, the Science and Technology Entry Program (STEP) and Ithaca schools to set up a daylong local institute that could reach far more middle and high school students than traditional Rotary leadership programs.

For Loter, a biological sciences major in Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the idea behind RYLI is deeply personal. As a high school student, she remembers coming away from selective leadership opportunities with the impression that not being chosen for limited their spots reflected a lack of leadership potential. Over time, though, her understanding evolved. "As I grew older, I realized that leadership is not defined by conference acceptances or flashy awards, but rather by being kind, having empathy, and the willingness to uplift others," she said. "Everyone has the potential to become a leader, and no person, committee or organization should ever have the power to take that away from them."

Designed to be welcoming and inclusive, RYLI partners with STEP - which supports students who qualify for free or reduced school lunch - to reach participants in grades 8 through 12 from Ithaca High School and Lehman Alternative Community School. The program combines hands-on activities and mentorship opportunities to help students build confidence and make a tangible impact in their communities. Throughout the day, participants hear from guest speakers, take part in team-building and leadership exercises and collaborate on a community service project. In one activity, Invention Convention, teams of five to seven students pitch solutions to real-world problems after only three minutes of deliberation before reflecting together on what they learned.

"It was inspiring to witness middle and high school students actively engaged, working together, smiling and clearly enjoying the process," said Richard Kiely, associate vice provost for engagement and land-grant affairs and the Einhorn Center's director of academic initiatives. As Rotaract's faculty advisor, he observed firsthand that "Ana and the Rotaract team have already transformed an ambitious idea into a meaningful program with measurable impact."

Only three Ithaca High School juniors are selected each year to attend a four-day leadership conference at SUNY Oneonta through the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards program. By contrast, the inaugural RYLI, held in April 2025, welcomed 15 participants. This year, Loter hopes to double that number.

Looking ahead, Loter plans to help establish an Interact Club at Ithaca High School, giving students an ongoing platform for service and leadership while connecting them directly with local Rotaract and Rotary members. Participants may also be invited back in future years to serve as counselors, creating a leadership pipeline for younger students. "By combining interactive leadership training with student-designed community action, RYLI creates a lasting ripple effect that empowers our youth to become confident leaders with the power to change the world," Loter said.