2023 Grants

GIRLS ACADEMIC LEADERSHIP ACADEMY (LOS ANGELES)

The Girls Academic Leadership Academy in Los Angeles (GALA) is the first (and only) all-girls STEM-focused public school in California. Their students come from 81 zip codes; 65% of their students identify as people of color; 98% of the last two graduating classes went on to college, and more than 65% intend to major in STEM. GALA is a great fit for the Foundation, and we're happy to support them! This year we will support two programs. 

Financial literacy event for middle-schoolers

One of the main goals of the Foundation is to make math and science education accessible -- and even fun -- for students of all levels of ability. Math in particular was always a chore for me as a child. Later, I watched with amazement as Jennifer made math accessible to class after class of high schoolers (she would say “math is just puzzles”). In June of this year, I attended the “Reality Store” event at the Girls Academic Leadership Academy in Los Angeles (an event sponsored by the Foundation) and saw these goals being realized. Approximately twenty booths were set up in a gymnasium. Each booth was staffed by students and offered services such as investment, housing, utilities, child care, and insurance. A couple hundred middle-school students were given alter-ego characters and budgetary limits, then went from booth to booth making purchases with virtual checks. The organizers spun up a persona and budget for me, handed me a “checkbook,” and I tried a few booths. At the real estate broker, a student (who was really embracing the role-playing aspect of the game) earnestly told me that I should buy, not rent, and I should buy a five-bedroom house even though my character was single. To facilitate this, I should get a huge mortgage over at the banking booth. At other booths, there were high-pressure efforts to upsell me dubious chances to win money, food, or trips to tropical islands. If a dispute were to arise, the parties could pay for lawyers at the legal booth (a third student would act as judge). The energy in the room was infectious -- the students were having fun, inventing new money-making schemes. The event was accessible to students of all levels of math ability, and it delivered practical lessons (mainly: consider the incentives of a salesperson!) -- yet it was whimsical and fun. Definitely not a chore. Bravo to the Girls Academic Leadership Academy!

This year, the Foundation is happy to support the Reality Store event again at GALA. You can read more about the Reality Store project here: https://www.infbpw.org/reality-store/

The grant is for $3000, which will benefit 300 students.

Financial literacy event for high-schoolers

GALA’s curriculum includes an Economics class for High School Seniors. As part of the class, 89 GALA Seniors will participate in the “JA Finance Park” with Junior Achievement of Southern California. The programming consists of a 12-lesson classroom curriculum in personal finance, a field trip to the Finance Park, and a post-trip classroom debrief. At the Finance Park, the set-up is similar to Reality Store (above): each student is provided a tablet with a randomly generated persona with details of their “adult life,” including job title, annual salary, age, marital status, debt, savings and credit score. The students visit various “storefronts” corresponding to monthly budget line items. The big difference between this high-school-level experience and the Reality Store is that the booths are staffed by volunteers from local businesses: for example, the students can talk to a real Bank of America employee at the storefront for home loans, a real Capital One employee to apply for a student loan, a real Toyota employee to explore car pricing, and so on -- and in the process learn which purchases are realistic based on their persona’s salary and credit score. It’s a great way to step up to the next level of financial literacy. You can find more details here: https://jasocal.org/finance-park/

Foundation funds of $3825 will be used for all 89 students in the program.

THE GIRLS’ MIDDLE SCHOOL (PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA)

The Foundation has supported programs at The Girls’ Middle School since 2010. This year, we’re happy to continue our support with a special robotics program.

Robotics competition

At GMS, the Bennett Scholars Program supports young women from under-resourced backgrounds who are often the first generation in their families to be college-bound. The program covers tuition, laptops, lunches, uniforms, one-on-one tutoring, field trip costs, and general school supplies.

In 2022-2023, GMS fielded an incredibly successful team in the VEX Robotics Program: their “Fantastic 6” team earned a spot at the California State Championship Finals, where they proudly represented GMS as the only all-girl, all-Latina team in front of 40 middle schools and won the Judges Award.

This year, students will collaborate on two Herobot Striker builds. Each student is strongly encouraged to take on a role within the team -- builder, coder, note taker, driver, etc. Teams meet twice per week, for a total of three hours per week to collaborate on the build, receive mentorship from established Silicon Valley professionals, and learn from each other. Returning students are considered area experts and share their knowledge and experience with new members, who actively seek their advice on robot assembly and best engineering documentation practices. It’s all part of GMS’s long-term vision to create a sustainable pipeline for GMS students to pursue careers in STEM.

The Foundation’s grant of $6000 grant will purchase three base robots, which will be used by eight Bennett Scholars in the robotics program.

STUDENT LEADERSHIP NETWORK (NEW YORK CITY)

We have supported Student Leadership Network (and its predecessor organizations) with a variety of grants since 2007 and we're happy to continue our support again this year. Hundreds of young women get a quality single-sex education at these schools across New York City.

Ecology program

As it has for the past few years, the Foundation will support a winter ecology program for students from SLN’s four New-York-area schools (Astoria, Booklyn, East Harlem, Queens). The Christodora Winter Ecology Program is a seven-week inquiry-based science program for middle school students. Past topics have included:

  • human impact on the environment

  • where drinking water comes from

  • conservation

  • the impact of urban sprawl on the environment and animals

Activities include dissecting owl pellets and identifying what the owl ate, and examining how animal skull formations show if the animal was a predator or prey.

The grant is for $4500, which covers more than 500 students.