Starting in the critical middle school years, P4L offers tech enrichment programs to low-income students and students of color – who are vastly underrepresented in the field. Its free, hands-on, after-school sessions on coding, programming, digital art, filmmaking, video game development, electronics, and robotics are designed both to connect to youth culture and to help students develop skills they can use to build a future. When schools closed in March, P4L made sure its families had access to food while also ensuring students had the technology they needed to continue their work. Instructors retooled, offering programs on video platforms and delivering kits for hands-on electronics/robotics projects kids could do (with coaching) at home. Programs will remain virtual through fall 2020 but the long-term uncertainty is what makes things hardest. As one leader remarked, “we are designing the plane while flying it.”
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