SHARING THE FUN OF STEM WITH OTHER YOUNG PEOPLE

Meet Daily Point of Light Award honoree Reeti Rout. Read her story, and nominate an outstanding volunteer or family as a Daily Point of Light.

Reeti Rout may still be in high school, but she’s already working toward helping all young people have the opportunity to pursue STEM. Growing up surrounded by math and science, Reeti always loved solving problems. She started hosting STEM workshops back in 2017 on topics ranging from robotics and coding to genetics and maker projects. Inspired by the mentors who encouraged her to pursue her own dreams of building a community of her own, Reeti formed WeMake 4H, a STEM outreach organization that seeks to inspire the next generation of innovators through STEM and Maker education.

WeMake4H hosts a variety of classes and free workshops, all with the mission of closing the opportunity gap and providing access to education in underserved communities. The WeMake team visits community centers and Boys & Girls Clubs to host classes on programs like Java and Python, and occasionally teaches some science classes. The organization successfully engages high school volunteers to serve as instructors and mentors, therefore creating a pipeline of educators who can pass their knowledge on these advanced topics to young students who may not yet have the opportunity to embrace them. As a result, it creates a long-term chain of community impact.

Reeti dedicates a total of about 10 hours per month to WeMake 4H, and her time commitment is significant for someone preparing to graduate from high school this spring. However, she credits her fellow board members and volunteers for holding down the fort alongside her. In addition to giving Reeti a place to fulfill her incredible passion for STEM, creating WeMake 4H has also served as a platform for Reeti to build her own sense of confidence. When she arrives at college in the fall, she’s planning to major in computer science, largely because of the work she’s done with WeMake 4H. She believes her volunteer work with the organization has directly informed her future career, because she simply loves helping people. Reeti’s story of finding her purpose through volunteerism is an empowering testament to how helping others can point us in the direction of our dreams.

What inspires you to volunteer?

There have been so many mentors in my life, encouraging me. I’ve had so many experiences in these classes where students say they’re having so much fun. But at the beginning of the class, they were scared, and then at the end, they’re really into it. They want to know how they can learn more. I’ve had students come up and ask how they can join or how they can be a teacher, and it means so much to me. I’ve had opportunities to teach in places other than WeMake, such as in school clubs, but in WeMake, you really are able to reach as many students as possible. I’ve met so many people who are passionate about increasing equality and equity in education, especially STEM education, and it’s just meant so much to me.

What inspired you to get started with this initiative?

Looking up to other people and seeing what other role models have done with their own organizations. I’ve seen a lot of very powerful women who made their own organizations, like Ayah Bdeir, who’s made littleBits. I’ve grown up seeing that, and it really inspired me, which is why I like creating these sorts of groups and spaces of my own where I can share my experiences and my knowledge. I will say that I did co-found this club with my brother and a few other friends, and that also is something that we value: working with other people who value the same things as us.

Tell us about your volunteer role with WeMake 4H.

It’s definitely shifted over the years. In the beginning, it was more about developing course material and developing my own skills as a leader and teacher. But after that, I started recruiting more high school students and middle school students as teachers and volunteers. Currently, I would say I’m mainly the head of communication with a lot of workshops. Fundraising is probably my biggest role, because I help apply for grants and reach out to various venues for placing classes and getting money for any larger events we’re doing. I also continue to teach. It has diminished because I’ve distributed that role more evenly across our volunteers, but I continue to teach, mostly programming classes, because that is my specialty, and I’m continuing to recruit more members and look for ways to generally expand our club.

What are your long-term plans or goals for the organization?

The content we currently teach will definitely be changing as the world changes, because artificial intelligence is becoming much more prominent, and students need to be aware of how technology is changing. They need to be prepared and maybe see how they can get involved in these different technologies, and I hope to create more classes that focus on that. Because this has largely focused on New Jersey, and I’m now a graduating senior, it will be more difficult for me to focus purely on in-person classes, so I’m hoping to create more centers closer to where I am, and maybe shift to virtual classes. I’d love to collaborate with more organizations and continue to increase our platform.

What’s been the most rewarding part of your work?

I have grown a lot through this process. I was quite young when we first started. I was a young middle school student when I started to teach classes. Now I’m a senior, and not only have I proven my own technical skills from teaching, but I’ve become so much more confident. I’ve become a leader. Also, I love seeing kids get so excited to do things. I know these kids will go on to do amazing things in the world.

What have you learned through your experiences as a volunteer?

I’ve learned a bit more about why students might be scared to participate in STEM. The biggest one is just being afraid to be wrong. Maybe they don’t want to participate because they think people will judge them for having the wrong answer. Coding doesn’t seem interesting. It’s really just a bunch of text and a black screen. But once you show them what it leads to, it’s something they can do. You can make games. You can make pictures. Once you really spark that imagination, it changes their mindset a lot.

Why is it important for others to get involved with causes they care about?

We all have benefited from other people passing down what they know. We all benefited from mentors, and it’s so important to value what our teachers do and eventually become teachers ourselves, however small that may be. Maybe it’s teaching one student, or teaching thousands of students virtually. It really doesn’t matter because helping your community is really important for whatever cause you believe is important. That’s really how we grow as a community. Our society works best when we’re all pitching in. There’s so much more progress that way.

Any advice for people who want to start volunteering?

Keep an eye out for opportunities and don’t be shy. Don’t be scared of asking to pitch in, because I know students are scared to show up to our fairs because they think they should be a certain age, but I was quite young when I started. You don’t have to be a high school student or an adult to teach classes. You can start young. Kids are the ones who can make the most difference, ultimately. I also think that you should go into this without setting benchmarks. Impacting one student is, at the end of the day, a big one. It’s more about helping one or two students feel interested in a topic or changing someone’s perspective on a class that you’re teaching.

Do you want to make a difference in your community like Reeti? Find local volunteer opportunities.