ABOUT US

A word from President and CEO Alberto L. Esparza

 

What is the Si Se Puede Foundation?

 

The Si Se Puede Foundation is a non-profit organization founded in 1993 by Alberto Esparza, and currently serves several hundred youth and Title 1 schools in the communities of Chandler and Phoenix. The foundation’s educational programs include: a college bound program, a calculus club, and a regional as well as a staetwide calculus competition,  physics and chemistry programs: whereby, elementary students are emersed into a college class for one week and present their project to the college class, an International Baccularte program for 8th graders, after school tutoring, summer chemistry program and award winning FLL robotics program. Our uniqueness are our high school mentors/robo mentors who mentor our elenmentary students throughout the year and summer. Many of our mentors are former FLL participants with a wealth of experience and donate more than 300 hours per year toward developing younger teams and teaching them how to build, program and research.Our program targets Title 1 Schools that lack the resources to provide underserved children access to a STEM curriculum. Our teams of dedicated high school mentors have the necessary technical background to help our younger teams succeed. 

 

Why create a high school community program?

 

The relationship between our high school students is a big component of mentoring. Our high school students are very dedicated, caring and service centered young men and women. It is within our STEM program that they begin to realize their potential for greatness and start believing they can attend college and graduate.

 

 

Why create a high school community team?

 

It only makes sense! There is a lack of gender and ethnic diversity of students entering STEM educational programs and career fields present additional challenges. Using creativity and innovation to address these challenges is critical to meeting this demand of skilled workers. In addition, SSPF promotes an understanding of the importance engineers and inventors play in our national economy.  With this understanding, students end up with a clear, defined rationale and purpose.  SSPF believes that providing a comprehensive STEM program to students attending Title 1 schools will inspire young people to consider careers in the STEM fields and fill in that black hole that is sapping the interest of young people, particularly women, when it comes to the STEM fields.