The BranchOut! Blog

Mentor spotlight

“They loved the friendly competition and that they could bring home their STEM creations!” “When’s the next session? My child had so much fun and came home with her tower yesterday!” “I wish this was everyday!” BranchOut!'s inaugural STEM summer program at the Pohick Regional Library took place on Saturday, July 16, 2022 and continued until August 13, 2022. We were so happy to receive positive feedback from our Pohick families! The planning of the Pohick program began earlier

I specifically remember a situation with two kids. Kid A always raised his hand to answer questions, excelled at the activities, and was relatively quiet. I saw my younger self in Kid A. KidB, on the other hand, was loud, wasn't afraid of being bold, and sometimes even looked bored of the activities. Kid B accidentally pushed over Kid A's toothpick tower when he was playing with it. My first instinct was to reprimand Kid B as I felt terrible towards Kid A with his broken towe

On Saturday, November 14th, we had our 2020 BranchOut! Celebration and Open House Event, commemorating the 5th year anniversary of BranchOut! and the hard work our mentors have done over the past summer! We heard from inspirational speakers, Ms. Melody Curtiss, Mr. Ryan McElveen, Dr. Paul Li, Dr. Yuhsien Wu, Eric Lin, Songhan Pang, Anshu Sharma, Austin Zhang, & Kevina Wang, and saw amazing performances by Natya Margam Dance Group, Maddilynn Ra, Rick Yoon, & Lily Walters. Here

Tony Lodge shared his inspirational story from Homeless to Capitol Hill. As an aged-out foster child, Tony was homeless throughout college a