We’re growing a lot,

In just three short years, Broomfield STEM has grown from one team of nine FIRST Tech Challenge students and eight mentors to a thriving program that serves over 220 students with the support of over 50 dedicated mentors and volunteers!
With a 77% Program Retention Rate and a large number of students already in the robotics pipeline, we anticipate needing to add 2 FLL Challenge Team and 1 FTC Team in 2026, and a second FTC Team in 2027!
As of November 1, 2025 there are over 100 students on the waiting lists for the 2026-2027 program year.

and we’ve reached capacity.

Holy Comforter has generously let us use their space for a small fraction of what we would be paying elsewhere.
We have teams meeting in the basement of Holy Comforter every day of the week, sometimes two or three meetings in one day, and we expand into other spaces of the church regularly as well.
We cannot add new programs or expand existing ones unless we find more space to meet.
Our volunteer leaders are now donating between 20 and 60 hours a week to keep things running. It’s time to compensate them for their time and expertise.

We have enough 3rd graders in FLL Explore that we get to start 2 more FIRST Lego League Challenge teams next year just for them!

We have enough 7th graders in FLL Challenge that we get to add a third FIRST Tech Challenge team next year!
FIRST has a FIRST Lego League program called FLL Discover, and we think Pre-K-1st grade kiddos will love it in addition to Early Engineers.
We’re working on a second section of Early Engineers just for 2nd & 3rd graders!
We’re ready to offer more Preschool Play Days and open play sessions for older kids as soon as we have the space and the staff to lead it.
We currently have 96 kids on the waiting list for the 2026-2027 school year. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could offer every one of those kids a place to belong?
Schools and preschools are starting to ask us to bring STEM experiences to them - we just need staff to coordinate and run these programs while our mentors are at work.
There are so many STEM programs out there just like FIRST that provide hands-on, problem based learning opportunities for kids in fields such as renewable energy, aerospace engineering, biological sciences, coding, math, and more, that we could bring to Broomfield STEM if we had more capacity.

We’re ready to move into an additional dedicated space! We need a minimum dedicated space of approximately 3500+ sq ft to set up workshops, classrooms, play space, and plenty of storage for our preschool-7th grade students. (The plan is for our 8th-12th grade students to stay in the basement of Holy Comforter for now.) Click here to learn more about our space needs. This is going to require a substantial increase in funding.
We’re ready to begin paying our key leaders and administrators! Currently, every one of our directors, coordinators and mentors are unpaid volunteers. While everyone has been happy to donate their time to get Broomfield STEM off the ground, this is not sustainable for the organization in the long term. In order to continue to grow and improve the quality and quantity of our programs, it is time to start paying our administrative staff and program leaders.
We’re committed to keeping Broomfield STEM accessible for all our students, so we’re working to raise funds to make up the difference. We already operate on a lean budget, so our plan includes increasing funding from all sources, including writing grants, seeking more sponsors, growing individual giving, and adding more revenue generating activities and programs. We are also evaluating the impact of raising current student fees, but we don’t want the cost to be a barrier for participation for our students.