Leadership can be one of those words that gets thrown around a lot. We talk about business leaders, community leaders, civic leaders and the skills it takes to become a better leader, but sometimes the best examples of leadership aren't happening in a board room.
Sometimes they're happening inside a house in Trumansburg with a paintbrush in your hand.
I recently had the opportunity to volunteer my time to record and edit a video featuring the 2026 Leadership Tompkins cohort as they spent the day working with Habitat for Humanity on a house in Trumansburg.
I wasn't there to prime windows or wash siding. My contribution was recording the experience and interviewing cohort members to create a video they could show at their graduation ceremony.
Still, spending the day documenting what the cohort was doing gave me an opportunity to see what Leadership Tompkins is all about and why programs like this are important to our community.
What is Leadership Tompkins?
Leadership Tompkins brings together people from different organizations across Tompkins County to learn about leadership from people already doing the work in our community.
Throughout the program, participants get to meet local business, civic and nonprofit leaders and learn about the different organizations that make Tompkins County work.
In the interviews I recorded for the video, participants talked about meeting leaders at Cayuga Medical Center, taking a mural tour of Ithaca and learning about nonprofits and agencies tackling specific issues throughout our community.
One of the things that stood out to me while editing all of these interviews together was just how much there is going on around Tompkins County that most of us probably don't know about.
There are a lot of people doing a lot of different things to make this community better.
Leadership Tompkins gives its participants a chance to see some of that work firsthand.
Then, with Habitat for Humanity, they got to do some of the work themselves.
Getting to Work in Trumansburg
When I arrived at the Habitat for Humanity house in Trumansburg, there was plenty going on.
Inside the house, members of the Leadership Tompkins cohort were priming windows and doors. Outside, others were washing the siding, windows and gutters.
I bounced between the different groups with my camera, capturing the work and talking with participants about what they were doing and what they had taken away from the Leadership Tompkins program.
They were doing the little things that needed to be done to move the project forward so the house could eventually become a home for a family.
One participant summed it up really well when talking about how leadership needs to be hands-on within the community. No matter what role we have, we all have our own part to play in building up the place where we live.
Leadership isn't just about managing people or having a certain job title. Being part of a community means actually participating in it.
Telling the Story Was My Volunteer Project
I volunteered my time to record and edit the video because storytelling is one of the ways I can contribute to projects like this.
I had a similar day volunteering with my Rotary Club for Habitat for Humanity recently as well.
The finished video gave the members of the cohort an opportunity to talk about their experiences while also showing them actively putting the ideas behind Leadership Tompkins into practice.
One participant talked about how working on the Habitat house took them completely out of their normal element. Others talked about the people they met through the program, the organizations they discovered and the relationships they built within their cohort.
It's easy to stay in our own little circles. We go to work, spend time with the same groups of people and interact with organizations we're already familiar with.
A program like Leadership Tompkins breaks down some of those walls.
You meet people doing completely different work. You learn about organizations you might never have encountered otherwise. Then you find yourself working alongside those people on a house in Trumansburg.
Building More Than a House
The Habitat for Humanity project was obviously about helping move this particular house closer to completion, but after spending the day recording the cohort and then hearing all of their interviews again while editing the video, it felt like something bigger was happening too.
One of the participants described the Habitat project as an example of what our community is all about: people with the heart and drive to work toward different solutions, all coming together to make things happen.
I think that's a pretty good description of Tompkins County in general.
There are so many organizations, businesses, nonprofits and individuals here trying to make this a better place to live. We don't always see everything that's happening behind the scenes, but it's there.
I was glad I could volunteer my own skills to help tell one small part of that story.
And after watching the 2026 Leadership Tompkins cohort work together in Trumansburg, I think they demonstrated something important.