We believe that everyone should have access to a family-friendly community where all ages can be part of the energy and collaborative learning where we as a society deal with new technology and life skills. The ratio of adult-students and volunteer-participants is a crazy number. There is no way that this can be paid for by the typical family. These are experts in their fields, people who want to be involved with all ages learning and exploring science, technology, engineering, art and math. How does one pay them for their time other than by huge thanks and providing an environment that works. Last year, we had 20,000 of adult volunteer hours. If that was charged at an average of $50/hour (low for a software engineer!), that would be $1,000,000 just for staff. To keep the cost down, we count on: Family membership fees for those who can afford it ($350/year for the whole family) Program fees to cover some of the costs of the programs (total cost of materials plus minimal overhead fee divided by the number of member participants) Grants and sponsorship from companies like GoogleFiber, Lenovo, United Therapeutics, and MetLife. Donations from individuals -- many of whom are members. Our donations have ranged from $5 to $65,000 but most of our donations are in the $50 to $1000 level from people like you and me who see how their family's lives have been impacted.
There is currently no paid staff except for one part time person who makes sure we follow legal requirements with the IRS. That means there is no one paid to write newsletters, no one paid to clean up the toys, no one to take out the garbage and recycling, no one paid to sort LEGOs, no one paid to clean up the shop, no one paid to sweep the floors or clean the bathrooms. We're certainly hoping to find some way to raise the funds to make some of that happen. Our long term vision is to have staff to provide the basic framework of the organizational logistics that make all of it easier but today we don't have that. What that means is that we count on our members to make all this work. If you have an extra 10 minutes and can take the garbage out, it helps. If you would like to help with a newsletter or website, your help would be appreciated! If you would like to sort out nuts and bolts and put things away in shop, it would help! If you would like to sort LEGOs, it would make it easier for all the FIRST LEGO League teams. At a minimum, it means please clean up after yourself. Don't make others' workload heavier when they may already be providing a lot of their time to make your program or your child's program successful.