Educate & Enrich A Child in Houston's 3rd Ward

In March of this year, our after-school program students participated in their first robotics competition. The children and staff have been working for at least 2 years to make this happen and we are extremely proud of them. The younger children, ages 5 – 8, participated at the exhibition level and received awards for their coding skills. The older group, from 4^th – 8^th grade entered the competitive level, and although they did not advance, they made SHAPE history for even entering. Approximately 30 of our students participated and they were the only all Black team to compete. Their success was even more impactful because their time in the after-school program is limited so the children have a little less than 2 hours a week to learn and practice the skills for competitive robotics.

The program is bringing more attention to our youth programming as the parents and community are getting an opportunity to see some of the positive impact that comes from participating in a fully engaged youth program. Enrollment steadily increased throughout the after-school term, with nearly 40 students at the end of the program. The enrollment boost has carried over to our summer program, which we had to limit to 60 because of the lack of space. During the previous summer, we were able to adjust for the lack of space by limiting the enrollment and creating 2 summer sessions to accommodate more students. Unfortunately, the school district drastically changed its calendar, which decreased the length of our summer program time, and we are only able to have one session. As we plan for next year, we will be working through models that will allow us to serve more families by creatively using the space that we have available.

Links:

• Robotics team news article