Bucks STEM Nonprofit Establishes Board Of Directors

BUCKS COUNTY, PA — Two Bucks County high school students began a popular STEM-based nonprofit in 2018. Now, while both are attending college, their organization has established a Board of Directors and has begun receiving funds to expand the program.

Girls Code The World was founded by Sydney Gibbard, of Yardley, and Mina Shokoufandeh, of New Hope, while the two were juniors at The Pennington School in New Jersey. Their interests in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math began at an early age; Gibbard's mother is the director of the applied science program at The Pennington School, and Shokoufandeh's mother is a family practice doctor.

“We knew that was not the case for a lot of young girls in our area,” said Shokoufandeh, who is currently a biology and biomedical sciences student at Tufts University. “We originally were driven by the idea that we had access to a lot of these things.”

Created to give access to STEM programs for underprivileged girls ages 8 to 12, the two former classmates have received grants and collaborated with organizations to provide programming for nearly 100 girls in Bucks County and Mercer County, New Jersey. A collaboration with SCORE Bucks County mentors Linda Zangrilli and Joseph Lutes in the summer of 2020 kickstarted the beginnings of their current business expansion.

“They’ve always been very, very supportive,” said Gibbard, who is currently a Schreyer Honors College biomedical engineering and pre-med student at Penn State. “They’ve believed in our mission.”

After being joined by new mentor Karen Kelly, SCORE has been consulting with the two founders through monthly meetings and check-ins to share insights and raise awareness.

“Mina and Sydney proved to be two exceptional young women who can handle whatever comes their way,” Linda Zangrilli said. “They listened attentively to guidance they were given and now have an impressive board of directors, have successfully run programs and raised over $40,000 to run their programs.”

The STEM nonprofit will be offering a new expansive program as part of the 10 weeks of summer sessions at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. Teachers can “nominate students who are outstanding leaders in their classroom” to receive a scholarship, according to Gibbard.

“Because we are a nonprofit, we typically relied on grants,” Gibbard said, adding that applying is time-consuming. “We’re opting for people to pay for a program and help cover scholarship opportunities we want to provide for students.”

Considering the future of the organization, corporate sponsorships and a new team of high school girls running the programs will be major parts of the plan to expand 'Girls Code The World' past the Bucks County and Philadelphia regions.

“We think it’s important that high school girls work with other girls,” Shokoufandeh said. “We’re all about women supporting women. We’re all women focused. We have an all-female board of directors.”

While pursuing science-based education in college, the two former Pennington students hope to bring STEM to young women everywhere.

"There is still significant progress to be made with creating and maintaining a female presence at higher levels of academia and other executive areas of STEM," the organization said on its website. "It is crucial that this work begins at the start of a young female’s formative middle school years."