Several members of Illinois Tech’s STARS Computing Corps, which seeks to broaden participation of underrepresented populations in computing, spent part of their spring break at nearby Holy Angels Catholic School teaching grade-school kids how to code.

Included were undergraduates Aleksandra (Ola) Kukielko (CS 4th year) and Paolo Ratti Tamayo (CS 3rd year), along with alumnus Henry Green (CS ’17).

Each took turns leading the coding lesson at the school, located at 740 E. 40th Street near Mies Campus. They also offered an afterschool program during the week after spring break.

Holy Angels serves pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade students, most of them from Bronzeville and surrounding communities.

Illinois Tech STARS Computing Corps students first reached out to Holy Angels to offer to lead a National Day of Code program at the school in December 2016. They spent spring break 2017 doing a weeklong HTML bootcamp there and returned to the school in December 2017 to lead another Day of Code program, that time for 50 students.

“In the future, we hope to strengthen our relationship with Holy Angels as well as other schools in the Bronzeville area with the help of passionate IIT student volunteers and the STARS members,” Kukielko said. “I would love for tech to be treated like math, science, or music — that every student be exposed to it early, like reading, and not think of it as something for others but not them.”

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