Teaching people to build, design, create, and share.
PAGE strives to see and respond to community needs.
Geneva Young, 2024 Summer College Intern
SkillSet started with a simple goal in mind:
breaking down the barriers that prevent girls, particularly middle-school aged ones, from engaging and learning the importance of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) skills. Not only does SkillSet focus on teaching STEAM skills to the next generation of young girls, the program hires female and non-binary instructors to break the mold of STEAM being a male-dominated field. In today’s world, giving the next generation of girls access to STEAM education is incredibly important. According to a 2023 report by the National Science Foundation on diversity in STEM, among people aged 18-74, only 35% of women were in the STEM workforce compared to 65% of men. Additionally, when young girls see representations of themselves in a field, they’re more likely to have a positive perception of that field (National Girls Collaborative Project).
While it may sound simple, it's an idea that makes a world of impact. It’s the mission statement of SkillSet, a non-profit organization based out of the University of North Carolina-Asheville. Founded in 2018, SkillSet’s goal is to “Help foster a thriving and resilient community of people who make cool things as a way of life.” SkillSet serves the greater Western North Carolina community- people of all
Teaching people to build, design, create, and share.ages, identities, and abilities– through various programming opportunities like afterschool programs, summer camps, and skills workshops at their studio in Asheville.
Amanda Simons, SkillSet’s Program Coordinator, shared the impact they’ve noticed while facilitating programming at PAGE:“On our drive home, one of our instructors that was teaching here [at PAGE] said ‘Oh my gosh, this was my favorite day teaching because when we came to a close at the end of the session with these girls, everyone said I’m having so much fun, I don’t want to stop, I want to keep going.’ And for that instructor, that was the first time she had heard that direct feedback from students in the moment.”
PAGE and SkillSet share a similar vision: empower young people with the skills to become leaders in their communities. While PAGE pursues this with a wide net that includes the integration of socio-emotional skills, literacy and creativity, and deep scientific exploration and analysis, STEAM Studios has a much more concise goal: get young people comfortable with power tools and confident in the design and creation of a physically built object. When PAGE reached out to SkillSet’s off-site Program Coordinator in 2023, it was clear that our organizational missions were in clear alignment and fruitful partnership was mounting.
Since 2023, PAGE and SkillSet have worked on several different projects, including raised garden beds for the Heritage Garden at Madison Middle School, bee hotels that were distributed around the community, and repairs to the Old Marshall Jail post Hurricane Helene. This summer, though, SkillSet and PAGE partnered together to create something spectacular in the form of two eight-foot long picnic tables for Madison Middle School’s Heritage garden. Built in just 3 days, the tables are a powerful representation of the work SkillSet has done, and continues to do in the community. The picnic tables also represent PAGE’s growth and increasing presence in Madison Middle School in a tangible way, allowing the entire Madison Middle School community to see and enjoy the work PAGE is doing for years to come.
Beyond the accomplishment of constructing these two testaments to community gathering, the shared educational space of PAGE and SkillSet build camaraderie, trust, and a sense of empowerment.
Amber shared another memory from the spring as the region continued it’s rebuilding efforts post-Helene.
“When we did the build in Marshall, that was the first time I was lead- teaching on some of the tools. There was a young person that was from PAGE that was really scared of using the drill. Everyone had kind of leapt ahead, but I also had just been a beginner recently, so I stepped back and went through all the steps to lead up to it that Amanda taught me. By the end of that day, that young person was drilling holes into concrete, and so that was super empowering for them– and me too.Just getting to see people move so quickly from being scared and having never touched a tool to rocking and rolling with it is super cool.”
The “young person” Amber was talking about was long-time PAGE participant Maria McDaris. Maria has attended PAGE since 2018 where she entered as a rising 6th grader, and has since completed the High School Fellowship as a part of the 2023 cohort. Amber spoke highly of PAGE’s partnership with SkillSet.
“My experience with Skillset has been amazing. My first experience with them was when we helped repair the Old Marshall Jail. I learned to overcome fears of saws and difficulty with big tools such as the concrete driller. This July, I learned to build a picnic table which the middle school will use. It's a great part of PAGE.”
Both PAGE and SkillSet are empowering the next generation of girls from Appalachia to explore fields and experiences they’ve traditionally been excluded from through hands-on learning and relationships with strong female mentors. Empowered Appalachian girls become women who are leaders, mentors, and multitalented individuals.
The partnership between SkillSet and PAGE offer Madison County students the opportunity to explore a range of skills while feeling emboldened to pursue non-traditional pathways. Amanda puts it best:
“We’re instilling confidence in people and showing them that it is possible, even if they’ve been told in the past that it’s not. So this is like a larger cultural battle that we’re in the midst of, even though we’re just showing up with saws and building a picnic table.”