Community Service Organizations

Our Newton's Road mission is to ensure that all children have access to quality STEM learning experiences from a young age–skills that will help them thrive into the future, locally and beyond. This often means reducing barriers to access these learning experiences for those who have economic, health or other situations that make access more challenging. That's where our community service organization partnerships come into play! 

Our initial phase of seeding STEM-related opportunities into the community started by partnering with Traverse Area District Library to bring STEM Kits to all 21 local libraries in our five-county region. This has proven to be a catalyst to expand STEM engagement within each community. Newton's Road is actively seeking other community organizations desiring to layer STEM learning and career exploration opportunities in ways that complement and expand the impact of their existing youth programs. Take a look at our STEM Map to learn more about our partners (public libraries, community service orgs) with whom we have helped place STEM Kits and incorporated the Career Investigator around the community. 

Take a look at how these STEM-related resources are impacting our partners…

“One of our clients just turned 4, and loves engaging the electronics kit. He recently learned how to spell his name so it displays on the LED. This is a learner impacted by autism, so it was very cool to see!” - Jonathan Timm, Founder and Clinical Executive, North Arrow ABA

“During some of the spring covid spikes, many of our kits were checked out for families who were isolating at home! These are wonderful additions to our lending library. Also, thank you for working with our team to provide some STEAM professional development.” - Kristin Witt, Co-Director, Great Start to Quality

“I am blown away by Newton Road's Career Investigator Platform. It is a fabulous, thorough, engaging tool that I am so excited to share with our Bigs and Littles. Thank you for including us in its use. We will link to the site via our web page dedicated to Bigs, as well as utilize it on a regular basis in our match support and resources communications.” - Krista Goldman, Director of Mentoring, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northwestern Michigan

“Our staff and volunteers witness excitement and eagerness to explore the contents of the kits. The kits provide an opportunity for children to develop important skills. A young boy had received a helicopter kit and returned to the Foundation at a later date and asked. “Is it ok if I have another helicopter kit?” He was elated when we were able to give him another kit.” -Candice Hamel, Executive Director, The Father Fred Foundation 

If your organization is interested in partnering to layer STEM Kits and/or the Career Investigator for Northwest Michigan  into your programs and help connect the youth you serve to quality STEM resources, please contact Emily Williams at outreach@newtonsroad.org.