Outreach Foundation aims to increase student advocacy in Hampton Roads
Donita Gordon might see around 20 students per week at her weekly S.T.E.A.M. Academy. She is dedicated to ensuring children are equipped with knowledge in these fields, despite their ethnic background, upbringing or the neighborhood they come from. She is especially focused on employing mentoring to assist African American children in Hampton Roads build social and student advocacy skills.
The Bureau of Labor and Statistics predicts that jobs in the S.T.E.A.M field, which stands for science, engineering, technology, arts and mathematics, will outgrow non-S.T.E.A.M jobs in the future. However, African Americans receive only 7.6% of S.T.E.M. bachelor’s degrees, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
“A lot of students are not interested in having a career in mathematics, science, especially not engineering. I like to choose people that look like them to help them,” Gordon said.
She focuses her work with these children through the O.A.T.
Foundation, a faith-based team that works to provide affordable visual and performing arts programs for youth. The foundation is located in Norfolk but provides services all over Hampton Roads.
O.A.T., which stands for Outreach Advisory Team, comprises teachers, entrepreneurs, social workers and more who share common visions. While their main focus is on making families healthy, they also provide visual arts and peer support groups.
Gordon is an educational specialist for the foundation. She explains that it tries to focus on what needs the community has and what the foundation can do about it.
“We’re the boots on the ground,” Gordon said. “We go into communities and design programs to meet those needs. We try to be the solution.”
As a fairly new organization, having just started two years ago, Gordon says their funds are limited, so their solutions are mostly through raising awareness and hosting programs. Their goal is to move away from the roundtable discussion and actually implement the practices discussed.
The foundation recognizes that there are children who may be struggling with substance or domestic abuse. The aim is to increase students’ awareness to speak up for themselves and build internal belief systems.
The foundation hopes to replace the negative behavior children are experiencing and give them a replacement behavior, such as the arts. This year, they are integrating S.T.E.A.M programs. They offer affordable, sometimes even free, music lessons and are working on implementing more engineering and mathematics.
Knowledge Turner is an eighth-grader at Norview Middle School and has participated in some of the foundation’s programs. In addition to learning how to play the drums, Turner says the programs have helped make him more social. He’s even taken an interest pursuing a S.T.E.A.M. career.
“I want to be an astronaut,” Turner said. “I’m really interested in the entire theory of what scientists think about when they say the word ‘space.’ It’d be pretty cool to venture out there, discover new things, probably be on a world record.”
The foundation tries to introduce students to S.T.E.M fields at an early age. One example is the math night, where students are divided by primary and secondary school. Not only do they learn memorization skills and practical math methods, but the programs teach real life application of the skills.
Turner would like to see reallife applicable programs integrated into the foundation. He suggested an electronic gaming class.
The next phase of the foundation is to incorporate programs like app design and gaming, Gordon said.
“We are slowly integrating other fields, but we want to start with what will attract the students,” Gordon said.
The foundation hosts math tutoring every Tuesday night. More information about their upcoming events can be found at facebook.com/oatfoundation/. Contact Donita Gordon at 757714-2339 about any questions.