Dear Robotic Seeds Donors,

 

I'm writing to share with you our collective accomplishment from our 2020 contributions.  First off, I hope everyone is safe and well. Secondly, I want to thank you again for your contribution and patience.  Since starting Robotic Seeds, I have learned so much, this was truly a journey with many starts and stops. Interestingly, it was the pandemic that inspired me to help young students in need but it was also the pandemic that brought on many challenges. 

 

Our goal was to provide hands on science to children in an underserved community to not only aid in their education during this difficult time but also promote an early interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Just like learning a sport or an instrument, an early start can make a big difference in interest and skill.  Although there were many schools that loved our idea, there were compromises that I was not willing to make in order to stick with our intended goal. Some of the challenges, but not limited to, were as follows: 

 

1. Schools dealing with getting their virtual curriculum off the ground; unable to prioritize STEM

2. Interested schools, but not quite in need, just not prioritizing budgets towards STEM 

3. Interested schools, but preferred a slow-rollout to a small subset of students (smaller impact)

4. Sometimes the educators were enthusiastic but not the administrators or vice versa, etc.. 

 

After much searching, we finally found a GREAT MATCH!  A "Title 1" school is when a high percentage of children are from low-income families, the school receives funding such as free lunch and aid from the federal government.  Despite being a Title 1 school, Henderson Mill Elementary School in Atlanta was the 1st school in the state of Georgia to be STEM certified!  This incredibly dedicated Science Department works hard every year to keep their STEM tradition going.  We connected with Ms. Amy Sapp, a wonderful STEM teacher at Henderson Mill Elementary who was trying to source coding material like Sphero, Ozobots and Makey Makey to help her 500 students, from K thru 5, become excited about computer science. After careful deliberation, Robotic Seeds has funded $4,504 worth of coding material to Henderson Mill Elementary.  We used an intermediary organization that verifies and purchases material on behalf of Ms. Sapp in order to ensure compliance, this was very important to me as I consider managing your contribution as a serious responsibility. 

 

Here is a quote from Ms. Sapp:

 

"I want to thank Robotic Seeds for purchasing hands on coding and robotic resources for my students. I am so fortunate to be able to work with over 500 amazing children. We are a  S.T.E.A.M. certified, Title 1 school  in Atlanta, GA. My students truly benefit from hands on activities and the resources that were gifted to us through Donors Choose and Robotics Seeds will allow me to facilitate engaging coding experiences for my students for years to come. We are truly grateful for your investment in the futures of all of these amazing children."

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Sincerely, 

Amy Sapp

S.T.E.M. Teacher at Henderson Mill Elementary School

 

I hope to post pictures of the students in action on our Robotic Seeds website, as soon as I do, I will inform you all. I am also attaching a spreadsheet that provides a line item to show where your contribution was spent. 

 

Thank you so much for your thoughtful donation, we will be seeding and impacting hundreds of children and hoping to inspire future technologists, mathematicians and engineers. More to come!

 

Sincerely,

Emily Nam