Girlstart

Back to After School with Girlstart!

Girlstart girls are connected, brave, and resilient. They are innovators, disrupters, dreamers, and doers, and they are ready to take on the world’s biggest challenges. These are the girls who are designing self-portraits in Java, building habitats for axolotls, and creating apps to help them stay organized at school. 

And speaking of school….

Girlstart girls are heading back to After School, our signature program that empowers girls to dream big after the school day is done. Our girls can’t wait to learn more about how they can make a big difference in our world through STEM!

These are the girls who like to ask “why?”. These are the girls who like to ask “why not?”. These are the girls who might have a Wikipedia problem (as if!), and these are the girls who, like Abi, are experimenting with slime and are excited to share their work with their friends.

Kaya, Abi’s mother, says that ever since her daughter was little, she was delighted by the concoctions she would find in Abi’s room. 

“Abi is a little chemist,” she says. “She likes to mix ingredients and see what happens. For instance, she will create slime and add in other materials like lotion, laundry detergent or conditioner to make it feel softer or to increase the elasticity of the slime.” 

Kaya often finds these mixtures on Abi’s desk, and Abi will explain what she is testing and what happens when you mix different substances together. 

Though sometimes Abi’s creations could be a bit messy, Kaya recognized that her young daughter had a passion for experimentation and discovery. Kaya says it was this passion that led her daughter to develop an interest in STEM. 

“Abi was always interested in science, in making things,” says Kaya. “Abi also loves rocks and shells. She likes to look at them and try to figure out what makes them sparkle the way they do.”

So when Abi began the fourth grade, Kaya enrolled her in Girlstart After School hosted by Christie Elementary School in Plano, Texas. 

Girlstart After School is designed to be a fun, enriching, and engaging experience that enables girls to build their confidence through STEM. The weekly program empowers 4th and 5th-grade girls to learn more about the sciences and encourages them to pursue careers they might not have considered before. 

During the 2023-24 school year, Girlstart After School served 2,033 girls within 88 schools across 4 states.

Girls like Abi who want to learn more about science and engineering are introduced to important STEM concepts through a wide variety of engaging activities like Soundproofing, AI Birthday Parties, and the Parachute Drop. The program is led by our STEM C.R.E.W. program leaders, young college-age individuals studying STEM and related topics and pursuing careers in the sciences. Our STEM C.R.E.W. program leaders inspire the girls to never give up, because girls can do anything!

“I have to keep reminding her that some materials are not good to play with, and that she needs to be careful with what she mixes together. She will smile and say, ‘okay,’ but I know she is thinking ‘what do you know, you’re not a chemist!’.”

“They have fun and tackle challenging tasks that show them that they fit in, and that STEM is for them,” says Kaya. “I love that it brings girls together and helps them form a group of confident, young individuals who are willing to take risks, fail, and realize that these experiences are essential for building confidence.”

Girlstart’s mission is to empower more girls through STEM. We believe that more girls with more ideas will create more solutions to benefit us all.

Programs such as Girlstart After School provide girls with new opportunities to foster STEM skills development, as well as an interest in STEM electives, majors, and future careers.

To Kaya, “one of the most impactful materials given to students is a book that highlights women in STEM from diverse backgrounds. It is important for young girls to see that women from all backgrounds have contributed to these fields and that they have the potential to do the same!” 

Today, Abi is a seventh grader, and even now, says Kaya, in part because of the encouragement she received in Girlstart After School, “there is always something brewing in her room!” 

Girlstart After School is free for our students because of the generous support of friends and community partners—individuals like you. This North Texas Giving Day, our goal is to raise $10,000 to empower more girls to engage in STEM through programs such as After School. 

An anonymous donor has agreed to match every donation up to $5,000, so your gift, in any amount, can have an even bigger impact on the girls who are at the heart of our mission–girls like Abi who are right here in North Texas. Please consider supporting our Girlstart girls by making a gift today!