SJC SPORTS · EDUCATION

The Dr. Samuel J. Cornelius Foundation

Fostering Sports and Education

A private foundation, formed by his family, to carry forward the work he spent a lifetime proving: youth sports teach young people to stand together — and to stand on their own.

“The guys worked out their own power structure.”

On Camp Sheldon, Omaha, 1967 — where six police officers and fifty-eight young men were left to build the order themselves.

Dr. Samuel J. Cornelius — press portrait: smiling, in a pinstripe suit and patterned tie, wearing heavy-framed glasses
Dr. Samuel J. Cornelius — press portrait · The foundation carries his name; the record that follows is his
Prepared for the founding board · October 2026 Present: scroll, or use the arrow keys For the board, the family, and their counsel

The life is documented,
not legend.

Every date on this page was verified against a primary source before it was set in type. Kansas City, where he was born. Anderson, where he was educated. Berkeley, Omaha, Nebraska, Washington — where he worked.

The 18th and Vine District sign in Kansas City today
18th & Vine, Kansas City — the historic heart of the city where he was born, as it stands today
1928
Born April 14, Kansas City, Missouri. Grade school there; his teacher, Mildred Althouse, stood with him at a state honor fifty years later.Nebraska Legislature, 1984
1953
B.S., Anderson College, Indiana. U.S. Navy veteran.Federal personnel record
1961
Berkeley, California: organizes the Sacramento Street Businessmen's Association — cooperative buying and promotion for minority business owners.Nebraska Trailblazer citation, 1984
1963
Executive Director, Near North Side YMCA, Omaha.YMCA of Greater Omaha, 150 Years
1966
Omaha, July: the mayor meets one hundred young men at his YMCA; the city sends its unemployed to register with him for work.Nebraska History, 2017
1967
Camp Sheldon: a $35,000 grant puts six police officers and fifty-eight young men in one camp, under one rule — theirs.YMCA of Greater Omaha, 150 Years
1967–70
Director, Nebraska Technical Assistance Agency; assistant to Governor Norbert Tiemann.
1970–74
Regional Director, Office of Economic Opportunity, Kansas City — Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska.
1974–77
Deputy Director, Office of Minority Business Enterprise, U.S. Department of Commerce.
1981
Nominated Deputy Director, Community Services Administration, June 8.Congressional nomination record
1982
Administrator, U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, from March 8 — the nation's school lunch and food assistance programs.
Wash.
Vice President, national board of the NAACP. Board Chairman, United Black Fund of Greater Washington — an anti-violence campaign that put young people inside the work as interns.Washington Informer
2007
Tribute in the Congressional Record, November 1: Missouri Walk of Fame; Who's Who in Black America.Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay

The city chose the meeting
over the tear gas.

July 1966. The method this foundation exists to carry was not written down. It was proven, in public, in the hardest week of his city's life.

A family seated on the steps of the Logan Fontenelle Housing Project in Omaha's Near North Side, 1938
The Logan Fontenelle Housing Project, Near North Side, Omaha, 1938 — the neighborhood his YMCA served · John Vachon, Library of Congress
I

The burning

Four days of uprising in the Near North Side after a police shooting. The young men of the neighborhood would not meet the city on the city's ground.

II

The table

They would meet at the YMCA. Mayor A. V. Sorensen came at Cornelius's invitation and sat with one hundred of them. The building he ran was the one room both sides trusted.

III

The jobs

The city then routed Omaha's unemployed Black men to register with him for work. In days, more than two hundred held municipal jobs. The settlement was not a statement. It was employment.

Project R.E.A.L. followed — police and youth in structured dialogue — and in 1967, Camp Sheldon. Sports and shared ground were not the recreation after the work. They were the work.

His Kansas City grade-school teacher, Mildred Althouse — widow of a Nebraska state senator — accompanied him when Nebraska honored him in 1984. The teacher outlasted every office he held.

What his daughter asks
the foundation to hold.

These six principles are Jean Cornelius-Barnett's words — the charter she set for this foundation. Beside each one stands the line of her father's record that proves it was already his practice.

Boys playing baseball in a park, 1970
Boys playing baseball, 1970 — youth sports in his era · Seattle Municipal Archives
1
He fostered youth sports through the YMCA.
The record: a YMCA career across four states, ending as executive director of Omaha's Near North Side YMCA.
2
Youth sports programs through the United Black Fund of Washington, DC.
The record: he chaired the United Black Fund of Greater Washington, and ran its anti-violence campaign with young people interning inside the work.
3
Sports fosters teamwork — and the individual.
The record: Camp Sheldon, 1967 — six officers, fifty-eight young men, no imposed schedule. "The guys worked out their own power structure."
4
The foundation honors those who hold the same beliefs.
The instrument: the Cornelius Award, Chapter Four — an annual honor for the coach, mentor, or organizer who carries the work now.
5
Monetary help where needed, that fosters the same.
The instruments: access grants and education support, Chapter Four — money aimed at belonging, not charity for its own sake.
6
Work with other foundations that foster those beliefs.
The posture: partnership is written into the foundation's instruments from the first grant — as it was into his whole career.

What the foundation is for.

The mission, vision, values, aims, and objectives — set down in the form a charter requires, so the board, and the counsel who will vet this formation, can hold the foundation to its own words.

Mission

The Dr. Samuel J. Cornelius Foundation Fostering Sports and Education awards money and honor to the people and organizations that promote sports and education. It removes the price of belonging for young athletes, strengthens the institutions its namesake served, and advances young people into leadership — with a focus on public life — so the method Samuel Cornelius proved travels farther than one lifetime.

Vision

A generation of young people who learned teamwork and self-command in the game, who were educated without ever choosing between the classroom and the field, and who rose — as he rose — from the neighborhood to the direction of public institutions.

1

Teamwork and the individual

Sports builds both, never one at the other’s expense. His stated belief; Jean’s third principle.

2

Trust the young with real responsibility

“The guys worked out their own power structure.” Order grows where it is trusted to grow. Camp Sheldon, 1967.

3

Access before honor

First remove the price of belonging — the fee, the equipment, the ride. Then honor those who carry the work.

4

The table over the statement

Meet people on trusted ground. A settlement is a job, a program, a place — not a press release. Omaha, July 1966.

5

Partnership, never rivalry

Stand with the foundations and institutions that foster the same beliefs.

6

The record, honestly

Every claim the foundation makes about its namesake is documented. What the family has not confirmed, the foundation does not print.

Aims
  • A1 — Carry his model forward. Fund youth sports through the institutions he served — the YMCA and the United Black Fund — and the organizations that carry their work now.
  • A2 — Open the door. Access grants, so no child’s season ends over a fee.
  • A3 — Honor the carriers. Money and honor, through the Cornelius Award, for the people and entities promoting sports and education.
  • A4 — Build the leadership road. Advance young people from teams into leadership positions, with a focus on politics and public service.
  • A5 — Hold the whole child. Sports, education, and nourishment together — he ran the nation’s nutrition programs, and never separated them.
Objectives — first cycle
  • O1. Incorporate under the proposed plan (New York) and secure 501(c)(3) recognition on Form 1023; complete Charities Bureau registration before any solicitation.
  • O2. Seat the founding board as named, and adopt bylaws, a conflict-of-interest policy, and written grant procedures — including procedures for awards to individuals filed for IRS advance approval.
  • O3. Make the first access and institutional grants within the first year of recognition, beginning with YMCA and United Black Fund organizations.
  • O4. Present the first Cornelius Award in the first award cycle, to a person or organization advancing young people into leadership.
  • O5. Meet the 5% annual distribution requirement every year, and issue an annual statement of grants and awards.
  • O6. Establish at least two standing partnerships with like-minded foundations within the first two years.

How the foundation will work.

Four instruments. Each one is tied to a line of his record, so the money never travels farther than the mission. Jean’s direction to the board: award money and give honor to the people and organizations that promote sports and education — especially those who advance young people into leadership, with a focus on public life.

FIRST

Access Grants

League fees, equipment, transport, and facility costs for a young athlete whose family cannot carry them. Removes the price of belonging to a team.

SECOND

Institutional Grants

To YMCAs, schools, and youth-sports organizations running the programs he believed in — beginning with the two institutions named in his own record.

THIRD

The Cornelius Award

An annual honor for a coach, mentor, or organizer who holds the same beliefs. Where the honor carries money, it is granted to the honoree's institution.

FOURTH

Education Support

Scholarships and educational assistance joined to athletic participation — the second half of the foundation's name, and the third leg of his own career: after sports and business, he ran the nation's nutrition programs.

The structure, plainly.

A private foundation: family-governed, gift-funded, built to answer to the tax code and to no one else. New York is the proposed plan. Maryland is carried beside it in full — the board should consider both before it chooses once. Work the comparison yourselves.

Funded by family money and private donors. Every dollar is a gift — never an investment, never a return.

Governed by a board of three. Incorporated in one state, chosen once — the ledger below is that choice.

The formation ledger · New York is the proposed plan; Maryland stands for comparison
≈ $225
Year one, all-in
Mid-size asset case, state costs
≈ $125–150
Each year after
State filings and registrations
$75
Incorporation filing
Certificate of Incorporation, DOS-1511
Charities registration
Dual — Article 7-A ($25) and EPTL (scaled, $25–$1,500)
Annual filing
CHAR500, due May 15 (automatic extension to Nov 15)
Board minimum
3 directors, by statute — the planned board, exactly; the bylaws carry a prompt vacancy-replacement rule
Counsel's note
The purpose clause may touch education purposes requiring the Commissioner of Education's consent (NPCL §404) — counsel drafts with that consent held open from the first draft.
The seat
The operational seat — Jean's upstate estate. Board, records, and banking live where Jean lives.

The federal ground is the same in both states: Form 1023 filing fee $600 · Form 990-PF every year · at least 5% of assets distributed annually (§4942) · 1.39% excise tax on net investment income (§4940).

The brief's recommendation

Form in New York. Maryland stands as giving geography — his home, the Silver Spring years — not as a second domicile; two charity regimes forever is the true cost of a split. If the foundation is in truth seated in Maryland, form in Maryland. The rule is one domicile, chosen once.

The board, and what
only Jean holds.

Everything else is decided. The structure is built, both states are drafted, the record is verified. What remains belongs to the family.

Board · Seat One
Jean Cornelius-Barnett
Founder. The foundation is her commission, in her father's name.
Board · Seat Two
Dennis A. Barnett
Jean’s husband — the second seat, named by Jean.
Board · Seat Three
Capt. Tekeisha Q. Burns (retired)
The third seat, named by Jean.

Israel Lee Armstead sponsors the build and presents it; by his own ruling he is not on the board. The foundation engages its own counsel to review every filing-grade instrument. No other organization stands behind this foundation — it is the family's, alone.

Jean's list — answer here

Five items only she holds. The board she named on October 21 — Dennis A. Barnett and Capt. Tekeisha Q. Burns (retired) — is seated above, and the organizational minutes can now be drafted. Answer any or all of the five here: this form carries the responses directly to the project manager, and a receipt number confirms they arrived. Nothing here files or signs anything.

1 · Your leaning on the state

New York is the proposed plan; Maryland is carried in full in the ledger above. The call is the board's.

2 · The year your father passed

And the funeral home or program, if there is one — the published record does not carry it, and the foundation's telling of his life should.

3 · Where the “Dr.” was earned

It was used of him in print in his lifetime; the foundation will use it as he carried it, and wants its source right.

4 · His children, for the record

Five children in the 1981 federal record, four in the 2007 tribute — the family's count governs.

5 · Family photographs

When the foundation is ready to tell his story publicly. Say the word here and we will arrange the transfer — photographs travel by reply, not through this form.

On the board's word: the chosen state's filing goes in expedited, the EIN follows, and Form 1023 is prepared behind them. Banking opens on the minutes and the EIN — the IRS determination is the long pole, and it gates almost nothing.

The record is verified. The structure is built. What remains is the family's word.

Prepared for Jean Cornelius-Barnett
Presented by Israel Lee Armstead · October 2026