Dear Friends of Galileo,
From my perspective, the opportunities for kids to learn important skills like design and innovation have been concentrated with families who have the financial resources to attend the schools and programs that offer them. In fact, when I founded Galileo back in 2001 as a private program, it was because I understood it would have been difficult to offer the right curriculum within the confines of the public school system.
One thing you may not be aware of is that from our beginning, we have 10% of our camper spots for partial and full scholarships. In 2019 we went further, awarding assistance to 15% of our attendees—a whopping 10,500 scholarships. These scholarships were funded by Galileo and the revenue generated by our full-pay customers (thank you!). The impact was incredible:
“My family benefited from [a Galileo scholarship], and I wanted to take the time to personally thank everyone who made it possible. My daughter absolutely loved camp. I was also impressed by the staff and activities. As a single parent, summer can be a very stressful time trying to patch together care for when I am at work. However, it felt great going into the summer knowing my daughter was having the time of her life.”
In 2020, we’ve committed to elevating this effort: 20,000 scholarship weeks, which will represent over 20% of our enrollment. The kids are ready and eager to attend. While Galileo will fund much of this huge leap, we’re on a mission to raise an additional $250,000 in individual donations to achieve our goal.
For every $100 you donate, a $450 week of camp will be made available to a child who otherwise would not have had access. And through our new partnership with Oakland-based non-profit Community Initiatives, your donation will be tax-deductible.
Many of you also work for organizations that are interested in making STEM, STEAM, and innovation education available to low to middle-income students. We would love to partner with you to do so. If you are interested in learning more about corporate and foundation programs, please email [email protected].
Thank you so much for making it more affordable for others to thrive in our communities.
Here’s to 20K in 2020!
Glen Tripp
CEO & Founder
