American Savings Bank, or ASB, recently made a $100,000 donation to the Girl Scouts of Hawaii to support its STEM Center for Excellence at Camp Paumalu, the nonprofit announced Wednesday.
The brand new STEM Center — an 135-acre living laboratory on Oahu’s North Shore that Girl Scouts of Hawaii began constructing in 2019 — will provide year-round opportunities for young women in cybersecurity, astronomy, robotics, computer coding, botany, chemistry, and environmental stewardship, among other STEM-based fields.
Girls using the center will also be able to go on outdoor adventures while exploring science, technology, engineering, and math, or STEM, careers through on-site experiments.
“At ASB, nearly 70% of our teammates are women and we know firsthand the tremendous things women and girls – especially those who are proficient in STEM – can accomplish when provided the right education, opportunities and support,” said Beth Whitehead, executive vice president and chief administrative officer at ASB, in a statement. “We are proud to support Girl Scouts of Hawaii’s STEM Center for Excellence, which will provide valuable skills and resources to our community.”
Before the Covid-19 pandemic began affecting the Islands, Girl Scouts of Hawaii received enough support to be on the fast track to complete the STEM facility by the end of 2020. However when the pandemic hit, it struck a blow to the nonprofit's capital campaign, slowing down progress, according to officials with the nonprofit.
“We are so grateful to American Savings Bank for their generous donation and continued commitment to enhance STEM education in Hawaii,” said Shari Chang, chief executive officer at Girl Scouts of Hawaii, in a statement. “This center will not only provide our young women with top-notch STEM education, it will also increase the number of high paying STEM jobs and expand related industries in Hawaii for generations to come.”
The STEM Center for Excellence is now slated to open in the fall of this year.
“With American Saving Bank’s donation, we are less than $3 million away from the finish line," said Lori Teranishi, Girl Scouts of Hawaii's board chair, in a statement. "We are so close. Our young women are depending on us to complete this project and we are dedicated to making this happen for them.”
