Mission
Mission Statement
Service Beakers provides accessible educational opportunities to young students through free lessons & laptops, empowering their abilities and inspiring in them a love of learning.
Inspiring Love of Learning
As a nonprofit led by current college students, we understand the importance of quality education for students’ present and future development. In elementary and middle school, we found hands-on activities to be exciting classroom experiences, and moreover, we always enjoyed learning from our older peers. In these experiences, we became excited to expand our knowledge bases, and this excitement allowed for the most fruitful learning experiences.
These understandings and experiences inspired us in high school to create Service Beakers. Through our organization, we aimed to provide frequent, free, and accessible hands-on activities to elementary and middle school students, taught by high school volunteers.
We have been able to accomplish this goal through our many high school chapters, which provide these opportunities to local elementary and middle school students. We believe that through our program, young learners have experienced the joy in learning that fosters personal growth and development. We would love you to join us in our mission in whatever way you are able!
Empowering Ability
As students during the COVID pandemic, we experienced firsthand the value of technology in providing educational opportunities. We attended classes online; used Khan Academy to supplement in-class learning; and even collaborated with classmates through programs like Google Meet. All in all, despite lacking in-person education, we were afforded great opportunities to continue to grow academically.
However, we understood that our experiences were not universal, even in North Carolina. During the pandemic, EDNC evaluated the state of North Carolinian education, and the results were below expectations. 75% of third graders did not score at reading proficiency, and 19% of students who were partially or completely remote did not attend at least four days of school per week. Worldwide, education availability as a whole is struggling—according to UNICEF, 58 million primary-school aged children are not in school. This data, in addition to our personal experiences, indicated to us the need for increased educational accessibility and quality, and that this change can be facilitated through technology.
We decided that Service Beakers would have the resources and ability to undertake an additional avenue of providing free and accessible, quality education. This began our laptop grant program, in which we crowdsource laptops and other digital technology from local corporations, schools, and individuals, and funnel them through three statewide partner organizations as part of the program’s targeted pipeline. Through this method, we have been able to provide additional educational opportunities to students statewide, helping to bridge the digital divide and improve students’ learning outcomes.