Your next engineer is in eighth grade.
Eastern Pennsylvania’s manufacturers, health systems and technology employers are competing for a STEM workforce that is being decided right now, in eighth grade classrooms across five counties.
A STEM career decision gets made long before anyone applies for the job.
Research on career formation is consistent on one point: students form their sense of whether science and engineering are “for them” in middle school — years before a single course selection, internship or job application.
The Academy is a four-day, three-night residential program at Kutztown University for rising eighth graders, selected and sponsored by Rotary clubs specifically because they would not otherwise have access to an experience like this. They work in university laboratories, the planetarium and the observatory — and go home with a certificate, a class photograph, a lab coat, and a different idea of what they might become.
Two returns on a single commitment
A workforce pipeline you can actually reach
Your engineers, technicians and scientists spend a day with 64 students who are exactly the right age to be influenced. Career panels, hands-on sessions, facility tours — in front of students from 35 schools and the families who came to watch them present. This is the only point in the funnel nobody else is working.
Visibility across a five-county network
Recognition reaches further than the Academy itself: 45 Rotary clubs and their weekly bulletins, 35 school districts, the 240 people at the celebration dinner, regional press that covers the program every year, and a speaking slot in front of rooms full of local business owners.
Choose the level that fits
Every level can be structured as a two-year commitment, which lets us plan the Academy with confidence. In-kind contributions of equipment, transportation, meals, printing or professional services are recognized at their cash-equivalent level.
Not seeing your fit?
These levels are a starting point, not a menu. If your priority is employee engagement, recruiting visibility, reporting content or a specific curriculum area, tell us and we will build the package around it. Several of our strongest partnerships began as a conversation about something not listed here.
The full schedule of benefits
Logo placement is the least valuable thing we offer. The reason partners renew is the afternoon their engineer spends explaining what she actually does for a living to a room of thirteen-year-olds — and what that does for the people who work for you.
Within 60 days of the Academy every partner receives a written accounting of each benefit delivered, with photography, student counts, participating districts and quotes you are free to use in your own communications.
Who already supports the Academy
Three steps, starting with twenty minutes
Sixty-four students went last summer. Help us decide how many go next.
Commitments for the 2027 Academy are being confirmed now. Corporate giving and marketing budgets are typically set between September and November — if the Academy is going to be in yours, this is the season to talk.
A four-day, three-night residential STEM academy for nominated 7th graders, funded by the Rotary Clubs of District 7430 and hosted at Kutztown University. Funds are administered by the Allentown West Rotary Foundation, a registered 501(c)(3).
