More Girl Power, More!

Recently we highlighted the initiative championed by our Board member Cynthia Newlin to provide laptops to the Girl Power group led by Special Education Teacher Ms. Renee' Cleaves-Bryant and Paraprofessional Ms. Lydeasha Crawford, who teach at Public School #16 in Paterson, NJ.

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This past month on June 15th we hosted the teachers and students (above) in our lab for an excellent working session and inspirational presentations by two special guests. Amelia Wong (right, in the photo here) lives in Verona and is a junior at Morris Hills High School there. She joined our group of lab volunteers led by Mike Brown after learning about Laptop Upcycle in the Suburban Essex article about us back in March. Amelia is passionate about supporting diversity in STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) in our schools and in addition to her introduction to the topic that she shared with the young women from School #16, she so impressed the teachers in attendance, that they invited her to the school for a more expansive discussion of the topic for a larger audience. Amelia worked up the presentation herself and led an active session that wowed the class. See Amelia in action below and the group photo after they finished up. Thanks Amelia!

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But Amelia was just the start of our great session on the 15th. After a walk through of the initial set up of the Girl Power students new laptops by Jon (the only "Y" chromosome in attendance), we were all treated to a Zoom presentation by Chattie Broadnax McGill. Ms. McGill is a Director at Kontoor Brands in Greensboro, NC and has a degree in Industrial Engineering from North Carolina State University. Kontoor Brands may be best known for Wrangler jeans, but they do so much more. Ms. McGill joined the company after graduating from college and shared her unique wisdom as both a woman and a person of color in the technology and business world. She also discussed some of the new hot areas of STEM that the students may wish to consider. The School #16 young women were enthralled by her presentation and asked a number of great questions.

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