It’s happening! | Partnership with Hope Solutions
Way back in September, I made a pretty bold statement. Sitting in my office, typing straight from my ambitions, I said that “I want EEE to host free, in-person workshops doing projects and teaching problem-solving skills, face-to-face. I’m writing it here, right now: I will make this happen, open to those who can benefit from it, 100% fun, and 100% free.” I didn’t know how I was going to do it, heck, I didn’t even know where to begin.
Today, I’m proud to say that we’ve begun. In fact, we’re well on our way. Now, that idea has become a reality. Here’s how.
With help from our incredible team and several knowledgeable mentors, I became aware of another amazing organization located in the Bay Area by the name of Hope Solutions.
What Hope Solutions does
Hope Solutions provides housing and support for families in difficult situations ranging from financial issues, to mental health, to inadequate access to healthcare. Meanwhile, they host after-school educational and for-fun activities for children living there, giving them valuable lessons and enjoyable things to do in their spare time. These events are entirely volunteer supported, and extremely important to Hope Solution’s mission.
You can read all about them on their website, but here are a few reasons why they are the perfect beneficiary for our first workshops in the real world:
After-school activities are already a norm for the kids at Hope Solutions. They’ll come in with creativity and fun in mind; all we have to do is give it to them.
Kids at Hope Solutions are incredibly motivated when it comes to finding opportunities. During workshops there, we’ll stress the connection between engineering theory to engineering careers. I truly believe that if you start early, anyone can be an incredible engineer and problem solver in their personal and professional life.
We have the potential to make a difference in these kids’ lives and futures. The idea of introducing them to this skillset, and showing them that they are all capable of being engineers if they harness their creativity through the engineering method, is incredibly motivating to everyone playing a role in making this happen.
Hope solutions has hosted outside programs before. This means that liability paperwork, YPP, and photo release are as easy as a couple of signed waivers.
Overall, it’s a win for everyone. It’s an environment where implementing EEE’s programs is doable and realistic, while simultaneously, the people at Hope Solutions can truly benefit from what we have to offer. Everyone over here is super excited to begin, and I hope you all are as well.
If I was reading this, I’d probably have two questions at this point: how, and when. Well, the answer to when is simple: Friday, January 27th will be our first workshop. We’ll then continue on subsequent Fridays, and make sure we reach everyone. Don’t worry, we’ll take plenty of pictures! Asking how is a little more complicated. As an organization that isn’t very established, it’s difficult to arrange partnerships like this. So how did we do it? Well, the answer comes down to recognizability. As it happens, the transition from our online curriculum and test campaign to real-world workshops has been the subject of my Eagle scout service project, and this has been the key to our progress thus far. It opens doors for us like nothing else - and now that we have these workshops lined up, I imagine the doors might just open themselves - even if they need a little bit of extra push to get all the way.
Stay tuned for more workshop locations in the future - and definitely don’t miss all the photos we’ll post after the 27th. Go follow our Instagram! I can’t wait to talk to you all soon.
Thanks for reading!
-Team at EEE :)
