Over the past five years, our Maker Corps program has been a source of inspiration, community, and learning for us at Maker Ed. We have learned so much from our community parters, and after five wonderful years have made the difficult decision to close out the program. Let’s look at the impact and reach of the program during its tenure:
We think these numbers speak volumes, and we’re also are incredibly proud of and inspired by the people and stories behind each number. Here’s a glimpse into a couple of the faces behind the program:
- Each year, Maker Corps partner sites across the states have attracted pretty incredible summer makers-in-residence, which we refer to as Maker Corps Members. These folks have come from all walks of life; we’ve had college students, pre-service teachers, retirees, engineers, artists, and just about everything in between. Last year we did a profile about one of our outstanding 2016 Maker Corps Members, Julie Cardenas. Check it out here.
- MAKESHOP at Children’s Museum of Pittsburg has been a Maker Corps partner site for the past four seasons. Their space is inspiring and their programs exciting. Rebecca Grabman has led the Maker Corps charge there, and has recruited many folks to serve as Maker Corps Members over the years. Many of her Maker Corps Members have stayed on to be regular artists-in-residence at MAKESHOP – how cool is that?
- New to Maker Corps during its final season was Mayborn Museum’s Design Den at Baylor University. Led by Emily Clark, last summer the four Maker Corps Members at the Design Den engaged youth from the community in a variety of maker activities from sewing to paper circuits to light boxes. Read more about the impact Maker Corps had on the Design Den and on its Maker Corps Members this summer.
Over the past five years, we’ve been privileged to work with partners who were always giving us incredibly useful feedback about what they love and what they’d like more support with. We’ve taken all we’ve learned from these years and are launching a new pilot program next month to put some of those learnings into action! We are thrilled that the Design Den (once again led by the fabulous Emily) is one of the partners in the pilot!
More info on that is coming soon… be sure to subscribe to our email newsletter for news about the upcoming pilot and other program announcements!
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