A West Chester nonprofit helps young people engineer careers in science and tech | Philly Gives

Londyn Chambers’ grandmother marvels at what her grandchild can do.

Every time the 8-year-old has something in her hands, she’s either taking it apart or putting it together.

“If something is broken, she’ll try to fix it,” Loretta Hogue-Scott, of Norristown, said. “And nine times out of 10, she does!”

As a kid, Richard Roberts III was the same way. Now, Roberts is the executive director of Young Men and Women in Charge, a West Chester-based nonprofit with the goal of inspiring young people like Londyn to pursue careers and good-paying jobs in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields.

Growing up in Philly’s West Oak Lane neighborhood, Roberts knew Wednesday was trash day. So on Tuesdays, he’d scour curbside bins for discarded radios, toasters, or motors — anything he could fiddle with in his basement, trying to see how it worked.

Roberts turned that fiddling into a career in engineering, and Londyn, who crosses paths with Roberts at the program’s workshops on Saturdays at West Chester University’s graduate building, figures on doing the same.

“I want to be an engineer, an engineer that creates things,” she said, telling her grandmother that she plans to obtain a patent someday. (And yes, the third grader knows what a patent is, thanks to the program.) “I just made a stroller out of cardboard and put the dog in it.”

Volunteers and staffers guide about 300 young people, third grade through high school, offering tutoring, mentoring, financial assistance, and a host of projects, including a major science fair every February.

The program partners with local school districts, drawing young people from the William Penn, Upper Darby, Chester-Upland, Norristown, Phoenixville, West Chester, and Coatesville school districts. The Philadelphia participants attend Horace Howard Furness and Martin Luther King High Schools.

The nonprofit also stays connected with about 150 alumni — about half of whom are in college and getting scholarships provided by the group. An additional 500 kids in first grade through high school attend summer programs. A new pre-apprentice program will prepare 18- to 25-year-olds to enter the building trades.

Roberts and his crew run a tight, disciplined program. Students are required to earn leadership development units by attending Saturday sessions, as well as weekly workshops at their schools. The workshops offer help with homework and the science fair project, along with sessions on additional skills such as financial literacy and basic coding.

Students must record the number of hours they study. When they join, they must give permission for the organization to monitor their grades through their schools’ portals. The staff flags students whose grades are taking a hit.

Participants in the nonprofit’s programs must also take part in community service. They memorize a credo that begins: “I am a young scholar in charge. I am bold and strong. I will banish fear and doubt.”

For some, the fear comes in the form of shyness, but there was no room for shyness earlier this year when Faith Taylor, a ninth grader from Drexel Hill, was competing as part of the group’s Math Counts team at a national meet in Atlanta. (The team won, by the way.)

“I was a really shy person,” she said, taking a break from a Math Counts practice one Saturday earlier this month. “My mom thought it would be a good idea for me to get out of my shell.

“I’ve met a lot of new people. I’ve gotten out of my shell and experienced a lot of opportunities. This is good, especially for people who are shy. They can get out of their comfort zone.”

“We’ve had to do some presenting,” she said. “I was like, ‘I cannot do this,’ but I did it, and after I did it, I felt like I accomplished something.”

Keith Graymickens definitely accomplished something. In seventh and eighth grades, he was pulling Cs and Ds at school, he said. But last year, when Graymickens was a ninth grader at Furness in South Philadelphia, he earned all As.

“They forced me to get my grades better,” he said. “They’ll be on your butt about having low grades, and they’ll tutor you.”

One Saturday earlier this month, he was working on his science project, figuring out how vinegar and salt could activate electricity in nickels and pennies with foil as the conductor.

Participants memorize the nonprofit’s credo that begins: “I am a young scholar in charge. I am bold and strong. I will banish fear and doubt.”

Graymickens wants to pursue a career in computer science, and dreams of being the first in his family to go to college. “I want to make my family proud of me and go to college and get some money,” he said. “I can be a role model for other kids in my school.”

It was the same story all day long one Saturday earlier this month — the young women working on science experiments in an office kitchen turned science lab, the young men figuring out how to construct a robotic claw able to grasp and lift objects.

Inza Soumaro, 16, a student from the William Penn School District, looked up from working on the claw to explain how the nonprofit helped him gain more confidence. A lot of young people, he said, “don’t get the support or the courage or the push” to succeed. But volunteers with the program “give you that push and that courage and the belief” that success is not just possible, but likely.

Michelline Kho, 13, of South Philadelphia, didn’t use to like science because she kept failing it. “Chemistry — that terrifies me,” she said. She didn’t like math much, either, but she was part of the nonprofit’s winning Math Counts team. She now considers herself good in both math and science.

Nyla Dukes, 14, of Drexel Hill, marveled at how the nonprofit’s staff had kept better track of her grades than she or her parents did. They pushed her to succeed. “It felt like they were really there to support me,” she said.

She’d like to pay it back. “It gave me more motivation to help others — to take time out to go to food drives and raise money. Seeing others happy makes me happy.”

Roberts, too.

He remembers his father sternly summoning him from the basement. Roberts feared punishment. Instead, his father told him, “You’re going to be an engineer.”

Roberts really didn’t know what an engineer was. But he went for it, even though, he said, his high school counselors and teachers discouraged his ambitions.

Roberts graduated with an engineering degree from Widener University in Chester. On campus, he bonded with other students of color, and later, with work colleagues of color for support and encouragement in a field that remains primarily white.

“I was one of those guys who hung in there,” he said.

The experience inspired him to start the nonprofit, so young people of color could be encouraged, not discouraged, from pursuing their ambitions.

“One of the features is that we try to place the kids in environments that there was no way that they’d be able to do on their own,” Roberts said.

The itinerary for an annual college tour includes an out-of-state school, so young people experience traveling. The group fields a team of math superstars for a Math Counts competition at the National Society of Black Engineers’ annual convention. In March, the team goes to Chicago.

The nonprofit raises money for scholarships for college-bound students. To prepare them, the group’s volunteers offer SAT prep courses, help applying for admission and financial aid, and host a career and college expo.

Layee Dukuly, 16, an Upper Darby 10th grader, readily explains why caring people should donate to the organization. He starts by noting the upward trajectory of his grades from the 70s in mathematics to the 90s.

“My grades were pretty low,” he said, finishing pizza before heading to the robotics lab. “I needed help, and my cousin told me about this program. It helped me a lot. Math is easier for me, and I’m starting to enjoy math.”

With his low grades, Dukuly had pretty much given up on the idea of college, “but now I have a chance of going,” he said.

People who donate, he said, “will be giving money to help people improve themselves, and isn’t that good for society?”

Jane M. Von Bergen spent more than 25 years as a reporter and editor at The Inquirer. janevonbtheater@gmail.com

This article is part of a series about Philly Gives — a community fund to support nonprofits through end-of-year giving. To learn more about Philly Gives, including how to donate, visit phillygives.org.

$50 provides one STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) kit

$125 pays for a case of 25 science fair trifold boards

$150 covers one night in a hotel room for two scholars at a robotics competition

$200 covers rent on a 15-passenger van to bring students to Saturday sessions in West Chester

$400 covers the fee for one scholar to attend Widener University’s summer engineering camp