For the last year, I’ve been co-leading a project, and its
pilot phase is drawing to an end in August. What’s most delighted me about this
project is meeting the volunteers who go the extra mile to create new opportunities
for the girls they serve.
The project—“Engineer Your Journey”—is a collaborative
effort between Techbridge and Girl Scouts of the USA, funded by the Noyce Foundation. Using Girl Scout Leadership
Journeys, Girl Scout volunteers have blended science and engineering career
messaging and hands-on activities to deliver for girls.
Many of these volunteers are what might be considered
typical troop leaders: moms who want their daughters to participate in Girl Scouts
so, sometimes when no one else steps up to do it, volunteer to lead troops from
their daughters’ schools, churches, or neighborhoods. It’s astounding to me that
these women are willing to take on even more, often juggling full-time jobs
outside the home, care for other children or aging parents, and additional volunteer
work.
Other Engineer Your Journey volunteers have been teachers/professors
and administrators heeding the call to participate because they care about girls
in their communities. They may not have a daughter in a given troop/group, but
they have nonetheless volunteered to lead engineering and leadership activities
in a unique girl-only setting. Whatever their background, I consider these
individuals to be exceptional, because they have given of themselves amid busy lives
in a busy world. As Australian teacher and politician Elizabeth Andrew said,
“Volunteers do not necessarily have the time—they just have the heart.”
These remarkable volunteers gave their precious free time to
attend trainings, record their opinions, and make suggestions to improve the
project, in effect investing in the education and opportunities of tomorrow’s girls—girls
they may never know. Whether out of hope that their daughters will down the
road consider offers for in-demand, well-paying, and secure jobs in STEM
fields; because they wanted fresh materials to enrich their troops in the near
term; or for any number of other reasons, these volunteers were committed to
the end. They were willing to try activities that might not have gone “just
right” the first time, able to say to their girls “I don’t know—let’s go find
out!” They modeled the kind of willingness to try, fail, and try again that
they—and we, the project designers—want for their girls. And this degree of
commitment cannot be commended enough.
So allow me to thank Brenda, Joanna, Christine, David, Deborah,
DeeDee, Wynne, Claire, Marsha, Priscilla, Cathy, Sharon, and Susan with Girl
Scouts Heart of the South; Mary, Veronica, Angel, Colleen, Kim, Kate, Rhonda,
Anika, Tonya, and Gretchen with Girl Scouts Louisiana East; Kathy, Heather,
Renee, Dawn, Brandi, Lindsay, Tauyna, Linda, Jennifer, Nicole, and Margaret
with Girl Scouts of North East Ohio; Crystal, Seledia, Claudette, Lynette, and
Davida with Girl Scouts of South Carolina – Mountains to Midlands; Jo, Amy,
Beth, Autumn, Juli, Wendy, Erica, Brandi, Grace, and Jan with Girl Scouts
Western Pennsylvania; and many more who made our Engineer Your Journey pilot
possible. Without volunteers like them, our ideas would not come to life, and
we could not have positively impacted hundreds of girls’ lives as we’ve done.
August 14–16, as the final piece of this project, Techbridge
and GSUSA are hosting a “Spotlight on STEM” conference in New York. We’ll
examine the lessons learned over the course of the year with Engineer Your
Journey, networking with staff and volunteers from 40-plus Girl Scout councils.
We’ll learn from one another about effective STEM programming, activating STEM
role models, and what excites girls as they consider STEM in their futures. I
invite you to follow our conference attendees’ tweets (#girlsinSTEM and
@techbridgegirls), and if our project evaluation results (coming in early
November) interest you, please reach
out to me.
Megan Davis is a program
manager at Techbridge, an
out-of-school-time science and engineering nonprofit serving girls and
underrepresented youth, and offering professional development for their networks
of caring adults. She is also a lifetime member of Girl Scouts. Megan can be
reached at mdavis@techbridgegirls.org.