Pen Pal Program
Overview
We encourage STEM Professionals of all kinds to get involved with Letters to a Pre-Scientist! STEM professionals send and receive letters throughout a school year from a curious middle school student. Pairs build a meaningful relationship by discussing STEM career pathways, higher education journeys, and how they’ve each overcome obstacles. Pen pals plant seeds that help students discover possibilities in STEM.
Recruitment of new STEM pen pals for the 2024-25 school year is currently closed. Recruitment for next year will open in July 2025. Sign up for our mailing list below to learn more about our program and be the first to know next time we recruit volunteers!
Testimonials
Can I participate?
We define STEM professional broadly. The main requirement is that you are enthusiastic about communicating with students, who we call pre-scientists!
We welcome volunteers from all different fields related to science, technology, engineering, math, and medicine and at many stages of their careers. This includes undergraduate students, graduate students, post-docs, professors, industry professionals, government employees, educators, healthcare professionals, engineers, and more. People from all over the world are encouraged to participate. Volunteers must be 18 or older to participate.
What’s the timeline and commitment?
We estimate this volunteer opportunity requires a commitment of approximately 10 hours spread out in chunks of 2 hours between August and June.
During the summer, STEM professionals register to become a penpal for the upcoming school year. Volunteers then complete a 1-2 hour asynchronous online training to familiarize themselves with letter writing resources and best practices.
Approximately every other month, STEM pen pals receive a letter from their pen pal, write a reply, and send it to the student’s school.
STEM pen pals commit to sending their letters by certain dates throughout the year because teachers wait until they have a letter for every student before students open their letters together during a letter opening party. Matched pen pals who do not meet the deadlines will be dropped from the program and another STEM professional from the waiting list will be assigned to their student.
How else can I support?
If you have financial resources to share, consider making a donation. A contribution of $6/mo supports one student’s participation in the yearlong pen pal program.
Or, get your company or institution involved as a partner. Email Lucy, LPS CEO, at Lucy.Madden@prescientist.org to start a conversation.
How else can I support?
If you have financial resources to share, consider making a donation.
Or, get your company or institution involved as a partner. Email Lucy, LPS CEO, at Lucy.Madden@prescientist.org to start a conversation.