North Plainfield Middle School offered a unique opportunity to the NJ SIM Foundation STEM Committee. Dan Kushner, Supervisor of Science, Technology, and Engineering at the North Plainfield school district, asked to partner in crafting a middle school program which would highlight the benefits of enrolling early in any of the multiple STEM courses offered in high school. Yee Jao took up the challenge and worked with Dan on a program which challenged the students to work in teams to build the tallest tower possible with 3 sheets of paper, tape, and a scissor within a specified amount of time. On March 23rd, cheered on by Yee Jao, Tom, Messina, and Debi Carter from SIM NJ, close to 100 students in 4 separate sessions dove right in, producing some extraordinary architectural feats. Prizes awarded, the students highlighted the skills used and Debi, Tom, and Yee tied the skills to careers implied. Dan, then, took over to detail how the high school STEM courses were relevant. Dan reported that many middle schoolers have since enrolled in the high school introductory elective tech courses including Computer Science, IT Essentials, Web Design, Engineering and Biomedical Science. He appreciated our help in promoting these through our coordinated sessions.
Giving Back to Junior Achievement's Biztown
Eight SIM members had a terrific time giving back by coaching 6th and 7th grade students on how to run a full range of businesses in Biztown on March 6, 2018. JA shared the following student testimonials with us that speak volumes to the impact and importance of our JA BizTown volunteers:
- “Today I had the opportunity to experience what life can look like as an employee of City Hall and citizen of a town. The best part about BizTown was being able to interact and work with students from another school.” – Clark
- “I enjoyed being in charge today and also being able to get two paychecks. I’ve never been able to handle money on my own so I really liked being able to make decisions on how my money should be spent.” – Ricky
- “The toughest part about being an adult is staying organized, especially when you have a bunch of people trying to get your attention at the same time!” - Jen
February 2018
Wine tasting fundraiser - Old York Cellars
Thanks to the 50 members, friends, and family who joined us for the Foundation fundraiser : A Day of Wine in the Country on Sunday February 25, 2018 in picturesque Hunterdon County. Thanks to our sponsors
Pyramid Consulting,
Solomon Page, and
TEKSystems. Wine was tasted, Silent Auction prizes bid on, and funds were raised to support our grant and scholarship programs focused on assisting students pursuing IT degrees and supporting charities seeking to leverage technology to achieve their missions.
NJSF IT Career Awareness - Paterson
On February 9th, members from the NJ SIM Foundation went to PS 8 in Paterson to engage with 21 students on careers in STEM. The group kicked things off with a brief introduction on STEM careers, highlighting the importance of recognizing that these career paths are about much more than just coding and programming. Rather, all walks of life, talents, skills, knowledge and experience are critical to making STEM a reality. There are business analysts, all sorts of designers, testers, project managers and many more. After an inspirational video, the class split into two groups to brainstorm answers to “What skills do you need for a technology job?”, “Name a job in technology”, “What technology do you USE in one day of your life?”, and “What technology could be INVENTED to make the world better?”. The students were enthusiastic, feeding off each other and coming up with some very interesting answers. The groups selected their top three answers for each question and chose a team member to present those to the class. The session ended with another inspiring video at what will be made available to us through technology in the future. Photo ops and selfies rounded out the morning and everyone enjoyed the experience! We would like to thank Jersey Cares for providing us with Bill Lami’s contact information at PS 8 and allowing us this opportunity. Special thanks goes to Bill Lami for being so welcoming and accommodating for the session. Thanks to Yee Jao, Scott Zadroga and Tom Messina for their engagement, Debi Carter for helping get the NJ SIM Foundation into the school, and Rich Cigna for recruiting volunteers. The next two sessions we are gearing up for will be on February 21st and March 7th at elementary schools in Neptune!
January 2018
NJSF IT Career Awareness - East Orange
Thank you to our NJSF IT Career Awareness SIM NJ members who presented three sessions of our program at the Dionne Warwick Institute, East Orange on Friday January 26, 2018. Karen Swift brought all the “goods”, Warren Fristensky made sure that the room and AV were set-up properly, and Scott Zadroga captured precious learning moments. Mark rocked the house with his facilitation magic while Karen, Scott, Warren, and the school staff, Miss Leonard and Miss Roman, helped channel all the great ideas being generated by the students onto our boards. If you look closely, you’ll see “The 7 Habits Tree” on the wall behind Mark. Yes, the students clearly showed that they practice Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. Thank you to Jersey Cares for providing us with a contact to this school and Miss Roman for coordinating at the school. Thank you both Miss Leonard and Miss Roman for joining us for the sessions. Thank you to Warren, Mark, Karen, and Scott for taking time out of your day to make a difference.
NJSF IT Career Awareness - Randolph
Thank you to our NJSF IT Career Awareness SIM NJ members who split-up into two teams to present our program in concurrent sessions at Randolph Middle School on Thursday January 11, 2018. Kevin Schwesinger made sure that the room and AV were set-up properly. Sharon and Rich each led their session of 22-26 middle school students. Karen Swift, Brian Jaffa, Joe Fisher, and Kevin Schwesinger engaged the students with how their journey landed in IT and turned up the energy during interactive student team activities. The school staff were wonderful in helping us engage the students! Thank you Team Randolph!
December 2017
NJ SIM Foundation Facebook page
The NJ SIM Foundation is delighted the now over 200 individuals that have LIKED its NJ SIM Foundation Facebook page. The page can be found at:
https://www.facebook.com/njsimfoundation/ As the give-back arm of the NJ SIM Chapter, we will continue our impactful mission by assisting non-profits with knowledge, connections and grants for technology initiatives as well as recognizing worthy college students with scholarship awards as they pursue Information Technology studies. To support the NJ SIM Foundation, visit:
http://njsim.org/make-a-donation/
Amazon Smile Program
The NJ SIM Foundation has registered as an approved 501(c)(3) under the Amazon Smile program. This means when you or your organization shop with AmazonSmile, Amazon will donate 0.5% of your eligible purchases back to the Foundation. Amazon Smile is the same Amazon you love to shop! Same products, same great prices, same service!
It’s very easy to sign up! Click here for instructions
STEM Mini-Grant Award
NJ SIM Foundation is pleased to announce Grover Cleveland Middle School in Caldwell has been awarded a grant as part of the Foundation’s new mini-grant program, targeted to support NJ School’s STEM programs. The Foundation will be donating $864.00 for 2 Vernier Probeware LabQuest® Mini Middle School Science Packages. Each set provides probes to measure a range of physical characteristics including motion, pH, and gas pressure. This will provide students the opportunity to access the physical science curriculum in a 21st century way. Through the use of these additional components the students can expand their curriculum by carrying out investigations, analyzing and interpreting data, using mathematics and learning computational thinking.
Click for more information on the STEM Mini Grant Program.
NJSF IT Career Awareness - Warren & Denville
STEM Career Awareness is off to a great start this month. SIM NJ volunteers facilitated two sessions at both Warren Middle School (12/1/2017) and Valleyview Middle School in Denville (12/11/2017). Our volunteers shared their journey about Information Technology careers. Students spoke about skills needed in an IT job, technologies used in their current life, and technology that could be invented to make their life easier … to realize how their interests/skills can make the invention a reality. In Warren, when asked “what skills are needed to have a career in technology”, the response “money” became a great teach-able moment on how the ability to convince people to invest in your ideas is YES: a key skill! In Denville, when asked to imagine a technology they would invent, the students came up with designing a coat that would change, based on the weather – lightweight in summer, more insulated for winter, rainproof during wet weather… or a pillow that could record our dreams and allow us to play them back for others to see. Pretty ingenious! We’ll be in good hands. Thank you to our Warren team: Rich Cigna, Warren Fristensky, Yee Jao led by Debi Carter and our Denville team: Stacey Blanchard, Dina DiMaria, Thomas Koehler, Mark Barash led by Doug Gabel.
July 2017
Seeing Eye of New Jersey Updates on "our" dogs
Because of the generosity of the NJ SIM Foundation in 2016 the Seeing Eye of New Jersey, our 2016 Primary Beneficiary, named two seeing eye puppies in honor of the Foundation. We recently received formal notification that Koda and Simba have been named and are on their way to live with Seeing Eye training families. At the same time, we're proud to receive word that Bogey, the first dog we were able to name, has completed his official Seeing Eye Dog training and is on his way to assist a blind gentleman in Texas
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The Patriots’ Path Council BSA STEM Institute
In July NJ SIM President Doug Gabel had the honor to present at the Patriots’ Path Council BSA STEM Institute. 45 energetic students listened and participated in a discussion about technology jobs; how we use technology today and what we may be able to create in the future using technology. The students also learned about computer languages and how computers communicate. With STEM becoming more and more popular, families are looking for opportunities to have children be exposed to real world experiences, individuals in the field and applications of technology in our world. The students learned during this session about binary code, bits and bytes and much more. The students were given the opportunity to make a bead bracelet or necklace with their initials or first name in binary. Everyone had lots of fun!!
2015 Primary Beneficiary Names Patient Room in Honor of NJ SIM Foundation
The 2015 Primary Beneficiary of the Foundation’s annual Technology Exchange and Golf Outing was the Goryeb Children’s Hospital which is part of the Atlantic Health System. In honor of the Foundation’s $30,000 grant to provide 4 VGo robots for hospital and home bound students to use to remain current with school studies, the Hospital has named a patient room in honor of the Foundation. We thank the hospital for this honor and congratulate them on their vision to leverage technology to assist with the healing and learning needs of young patients.
Resource Advisory provides Hope help
For the past five months the NJ SIM Foundation’s Resource Advisory Committee has been actively connecting with and assisting past and potential grant recipients with advisory services. One of the latest assists has been with
Cancer Hope Network. After spending about 35 hours working with the organization and a vendor, project requirements were completed on the redesign of a Volunteer Matching System. Guidance was also provided to secure free (for non-profits) software from Microsoft and Adobe. The committee assisted with the selection of a vendor and is acting as technical lead between CHN and the vendor as an application rewrite project continues. The effort is a great collaboration between all the contributors and the real winner will be the non-profit, Cancer Hope Network. Great work team… The Resource Advisory Committee is looking for individuals who would like to share their skills and knowledge to assist non-profits. Currently the Committee is looking to engage with Child Family Resources and HOPES. If you are interested, please reach out to Nauman Chughtai ,
nchughtai@gmail.com.
May 2017
2017 Technology Exchange & Golf Outing damp but positive
Unfortunately this year’s Golf Outing was rained out. All participating members and practitioners did however welcome our vendor-sponsors during the Technology Exchange portion of the day. After networking for a few hours while it rained outside we introduced this year’s Primary Beneficiary, Jersey Cares. The Foundation presented Jersey Cares with a $30,000 check to support the establishment of a Mobile STEM Lab and Telepresence suite. This will allow students in underserved school districts an opportunity for some exciting STEM learning. Additionally, the telepresence suite will help facilitate workshops, training and mentoring opportunities. As we reached late morning with it continuing to rain outside we drew our lucky raffle winners. Congratulations to Roger So -1
st prize, Douglas Gabel -2
nd prize, and Chris Solarczyk - 3
rd prize. With EC approval we will look to welcome our vendor sponsors to our informal Annual BBQ on August 10 in an effort to provide them added value for their generous contributions to the Foundation. It will be an opportunity for our members to show their appreciation for our sponsors support of the Foundation and for vendors to share their business proposition with members through networking. A win-win for all. Prizes will be handed out that evening also
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NJ SIM Foundation participate in Matawan-Aberdeen Career Fair Day
On May 12
th, 6 volunteers traveled to the Matawan-Aberdeen area to participate in a school-wide Career Fair Day. The volunteers shared with students their roles within the technology field. The team led the young people through a series of interactive exercises to help them better understand the types of individuals who enter into the technology field and the types of jobs they do. They also brainstormed ways that technology could be used to make the world a better place to live. They identified things like: clothing that changes with the weather, printable food and pillows that capture/record dreams to play back when a person is awake. Introducing technology careers to young people will insure we have the needed creative minds to lead us in the future.
