How Cal Ripken Jr.'s dad influenced the opening of 500 STEM centers nationwide
Baltimore -- For years, the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation has been doing work to support underserved communities.
The Ripken Foundation officially opened its latest STEM center in a Baltimore County middle school, giving students access to state-of-the-art technology, hands-on learning experiences, and skill sets essential to the future of STEM.
The STEM center at Lansdowne Middle School is the 500th STEM center the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation has opened.
It's a milestone Cal Ripken Jr. said his dad would be pleased with.
"I think he'd be extremely proud of the work the foundation is doing in his name," Ripken said.
The 500 STEM centers span 23 states and service over 190,000 children across the country.
The center provides invaluable hands-on learning experiences with state-of-the-art technology, preparing kids for the future of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
"It's good to celebrate numbers as points in your success, but it will also give you new goals to say okay let's reach the next plateau," Ripken said.
A partnership with Exelon will help the Ripken foundation reach that next plateau.
The foundation will open 81 STEM centers over the next three years, seven of the centers will be in the Baltimore area.
"It's really about the impact. Cal said you can talk about the numbers, but when you think about the number of kids that you get a chance to impact their lives, and I said in the room there if one of them says I can do this, that means we have another engineer, another scientist, that could possibly change the trajectory of what we are trying to do in society."
Other centers will open in areas around Atlantic City, NJ, Chicago, IL, Philadelphia, PA, Wilmington, DE, and Washington, D.C.
