• Girls Code Savannah began  during a bold experiment in July 2023. 

• Could we teach 32 5th‑8th grade girls to code their own websites from a blank screen in only 4 days?

• Pre‐AI. Pre‐vibe coding. Just HTML, CSS, the World Wide Web, and a code editor.

• Could we also help them fall a little bit in love with tech while doing it?

• The answer was yes. And  we had no idea of the exceptional joy & growth that would lie ahead. 

• 3 years & an AI revolution later, our “experiment” has expanded to include 5th‑11th grade girls (and boys) and is  now one of the most unique youth tech, coding, & AI educational experiences in the country. 

• Girls Code Savannah is  designed for young women in 5th‐11th grades within the  Savannah Chatham County  Public School System, as well as Greater Savannah home school students.

• We also  now accept  public‐school and home‐school  students from surrounding counties  — Effingham, Bryan, Liberty, Jasper, & Beaufort.

• We  welcome all genders  to attend our girl-focused camps and classes. Currently,  about 10% of our students are boys. 

• We accept a limited number of new students  during our Spring & Fall Saturday Sessions. 

• Our  Summer & Winter Camps are for Returning Students only. 

•  New students  who attend Spring or Fall Saturday Sessions  are then eligible to atttend  the following  Summer or Winter Camp  as a Returning Student.

• To  learn why our camps are for Returning Students only,  see our Camps & Classes FAQs.

• Girls Code Savannah camps and classes are  100% tuition-free. 

• Beginning in  Fall 2026,  we are introducing a  $10 non-refundable New Student Commitment Fee  due at registration.

• The  New Student Commitment Fee helps ensure new students are committed to attending  and keeps our new student waitlist to a minimum.

• There is  No Commitment Fee for Returning Students. 

•  Over 90%  of our direct funding is enthusiastically  provided by our Founder & Executive Director.  She thinks it's, hands down,  the best money she's ever spent. 

•  Other organizations & individuals also contribute  — dollars, used laptops, snacks, & encouraging words — in support of our efforts.  Many are mentioned in our feature stories  or quoted in our Encouraging Words feature on our Student Websites page.

• And  we can't say enough about our valued partnership  with the Live Oak Public Library system  who generously provides all space  for our Girls Code Savannah Camps & Classes.

•  Our classes are  known as  Saturday Sessions. 

• Our  Spring Saturday Sessions  are held across Saturdays in  March & April. 

• Our  Fall Saturday Sessions  are held across Saturdays in  October & November. 

•  Summer Camp  is held in  mid‑July. 

•  Winter Camp  is held in  late December. 

• All  Saturday Sessions  are held at the  Bull Street & SW Chatham  branches of the Live Oak Public Library system.

• All  Summer & Winter Camps  are held at the  SW Chatham  branch of the Live Oak Public Library system.

• Coding languages including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, & Swift

• Software development tools including Code Editors, & IDEs

• Data concepts & structures including Cloud Computing, Databases, APIs, & JSON

• AI concepts & platforms including Prompt Engineering, LLMs, ChatGPT, Perplexity, & Claude

During Spring & Fall Saturday Sessions

•  New Students  learn coding fundamentals via HTML & CSS and  code their own  Beginner Website  from a blank screen. 

•  Returning Students  continue to  build upon the coding, tech, & AI skills they've acquired  by coding “byte-sized” tech components & projects.

During Summer & Winter Camps

• Our  Returning Students & Instructors  collectively  form 1 large tech team  that is divided into  4 sub-teams 

 UI/UX Coding,

 Data Engineering,

 Digital Media,

 & Graphic Design

 to build & launch  a software application or digital product.

• You can  find examples  of these amazing Summer & Winter Camp tech builds  in the feature stories  on our Home page.

•  We only invite Returning Students  to attend our Summer & Winter Camps  because we spend that time  intensely  building  small‑scale, high‑impact  software applications  and  digital products. 

•  We move quickly during camps  to achieve a particular tech‑build goal.  Therefore, it's important  that  students  in attendance  already have some experience coding with us and  feel comfortable in  our “tech start‑up like” culture. 

•  See the previous FAQ  on how our camps & classes differ  to learn  more about  the “tech team” structure of our  Summer & Winter  camps. 

• Yes  Returning Students  who attend camp  have the opportunity to be paid for contributing  the coding, tech, and/or AI  skills they've acquired  to the tech project we are building.

•  Returning Students qualify to be paid  at camps  by remaining active  in camps & classes  over time & demonstrating increased tech & coding skills. 

•  Our camps are  intentionally  designed to give our students 2 things  — beyond increasing their technical skills:

1. A sense of  what it's like to be part of a tech team  collaborating toward an end goal and

2. A sense of  what it feels like to be financially rewarded for  their  technical skills 

•  Returning Students  who attend camp but are  still early in building their coding & technical skills  continue to grow their skills while there. In doing so, they  increase their eligibility to be paid  for their skills  at future camps. 

•  We are not currently seeking outside instructors at this time. 

• Should that change, we will update this answer and provide details on how to apply.

• Yes  Students who remain active  in our program over time  and demonstrate the required knowledge & interpersonal skills  to effectively assist in teaching other students  have the opportunity to become Assistant Instructors. 

•  Several of our long-time students have recently become Assistant Instructors.  They help our Lead Instructors teach Beginner Students during our Spring & Fall Saturday Sessions.

•  Helping Beginner Students  learn to code  is an excellent way for our  more advanced  long‑time students to further solidify  their  tech & coding knowledge. 

• Students who become  Assistant Instructors  while still in our program  continue to build their own tech, coding, & AI skill sets  outside of the Assistant Instructor role.

• Yes.  Girls Code Savannah thrives on a mentorship model of instruction. 

• All of  our earliest instructors were  both  taught to code and mentored  on how to effectively teach coding to youth  by our Executive Director. 

•  New instructors receive  both  directed mentorship outside the classroom and real‑time mentorship  while assisting current instructors  inside the classroom. 

•  As some  of our earliest  students  now  become Assistant Instructors, the  same  mentorship model of instruction continues. 

•  Our college-aged instructors also receive personal mentorship  around early professional development, mid‑college internships, and early-career goals.

• Yes.  All of our instructor positions are paid positions,  including those for current students who become Assistant Instructors.

•  We do not offer volunteer instructor positions.  We believe that both  technical skills & teaching skills  are extremely valuable and  should be compensated. 

•  We do not agree with  the cultural norm where  women, in particular,  are often  being asked to volunteer their hard‑earned skill sets. 

•  We want both our students & our instructors to know their worth. 

•  We occassionally offer internship opportunities to current students  seeking to develop a tech‑focused project or achieve a particular tech‑focused goal that extends  beyond our usual camp or classes timeframe.