The nonprofit that lets girls build the world they want to see

Building at Girls Garage, she continues, “is less about choosing a future path [than it is about becoming] a creator, a builder, an activist, and a young person with both technical and leadership skills that they might apply anywhere.” That said, hundreds of students have come to Girls Garage to either nurture or discover their love of the industries that shape the built environment. Alumni have gone on to college programs in civil engineering and architecture or into apprenticeship or certificate programs in welding. “The idea that these young people came to Girls Garage as fourth and fifth graders and are now in spaces and rooms and jobsites as a different type of leader is incredibly gratifying to watch,” she says.

This year, the organization is celebrating its 10th anniversary by moving into a new, larger space (5,000 square feet, double its previous digs), which will allow it to run more classes, take on even grander construction projects, and expand the number of participants. The move, says Pilloton-Lam, “is symbolic of something of such great promise”: that our students “are the authors and builders of the kind of world we all want to see, and they have the space and support to make it so.”