Camps & Classes
More Than We Imagined!
More Students,
More Classrooms
One year ago Girls Code Savannah Summer Camp began with 33 girls in 1 computer science classroom . By Winter Camp we had grown to 55 students across 2 computer science classrooms . For Summer Camp 2024 we welcomed 72 students to 4 computer science classrooms across 2 university buildings !
More Instructors
With Summer Camp 2024, our Girls Code Savannah Team continued to grow in both leadership and numbers. Two of our team members, Carleysue Mayes and Sheila Nguyen , recently graduated to Lead Instructors and led our 2 Beginner Coding Classes. Zoe Chow , who is a Founding Instructor and has led coding camps & classes since Girls Code Savannah began, led one of our 2 Returning Coding Classes. Lesli Ott , our Executive Director, led the other. We also welcomed 7 New Assistant Instructors across both our Beginner and Returning classes.
Carleysue Mayes
Lead Instructor
High School Senior
Veritas Academy
Sheila Nguyen
Lead Instructor
College Student
Georgia Tech
Zoe Chow
Founding & Lead Instructor
High School Senior
Savannah Arts Academy
More Special Guests
During the week campers also engaged with special guest speakers who inspired them with stories of how they are using tech to build their own businesses and special guest instructors who provided them with interactive learning sessions around tech-related topics.
On Monday, Mariah Hay shared her passion for creating human-centered technology and talked about the launch of her new company, focused on using tech to solve problems new employees often face when going through the onboarding process. She encouraged students to think about a problem they'd like to use tech to solve.
On Tuesday, Jessie May Wolfe interactively taught new campers how to use color theory to inspire emotion from website viewers and how to use the color wheel to create a cohesive color palette for web applications and graphic designs. She also taught all students how to express a cohesive design theme through helping them create individual mood boards.
On Wednesday, married tech duo Kristie & Frank Calise talked with campers about the journey of collaborating on, building, and launching their Balance App on Apple's App Store. Their talk demonstrated to students the value of working with others who have different but complementary skills to their own to create something meaningful and wonderful. Their app uses Kristie's deep knowledge in nutrition & exercise physiology and Frank's expertise in coding & programming to provide efficient and effective workouts and nutrition guidance for women.
On Thursday, Alia Freeman shared her entrepreneurial journey in creating a multicultural salon & spa focused on enhancing authentic beauty and how her company uses tech to improve the client experience. She also relayed how she overcame personal and professional challenges by never giving up on her dreams. She encouraged students to value what makes them different and to be bold in the face of fear as they work to realize their goals and dreams.
On Friday, Travis Taborek, introduced our most advanced class of Returning Students to SEO concepts and walked them through interactive examples designed to help them implement SEO techniques within their own websites. He also thrilled them with stories and photos of his life as a digital nomad — traveling around the world while advising businesses on SEO strategy and creating high-quality digital content.
On Friday, extremely-popular & frequent guest speaker and Girls Code Savannah supporter Danietté Thomas returned to share a moment of encouragement with students during our Summer Camp Showcase. She spoke of her journey as a highly-acclaimed fashion designer & recent Black Ambition Prize SemiFinalist and reminded students that she did (and does) it all from her hometown of Savannah, GA. She reaffirmed that, through the use of technology, they can achieve their dreams from anywhere.
She also generously raffled a FREE designer makeover for one of our lucky Girls Code Savannah moms!
More Coding,
More Websites
Rising 5th-9th grade students from across Chatham County and beyond began building or continued to advance their real-world coding skills and displayed them via personal websites they coded as real-world software developers using HTML, CSS, & JavaScript.
More Celebration
& More Joy!
On Friday, family members, guest speakers, sponsors, supporters, and Savannah community leaders, gathered with campers and Girls Code Savannah team members for an end-of-camp pizza party and Summer Camp Showcase. Campers won prizes, one lucky mom won a designer makeover from acclaimed fashion designer and current Black Ambition Prize SemiFinalist Danietté Thomas, and campers' new coding skills and personal websites were celebrated by all. Want to feel the joy of what's become more than 100 creatively inspired, individually-coded student websites? Take a look!
Thank You!
To Our Girls Code Savannah Summer Camp 2024 Sponsors & Supporters
