Develop Your Future: Learn to Code For Free

The Geek Foundation Empowers Marginalized Populations to Earn Living Wages

1 in 4 individuals in Springfield, Missouri experienced poverty during the last 12 months. Women, single mothers, and minorities are at the greatest risk of financial insecurity and are therefore the primary focus of The Geek Foundation. The estimated female poverty rate is 27.6% compared to 23.6% for men; while 38.0% of African Americans struggled financially compared to 24.2% of Caucasians. Single female households experienced a poverty rate of 40.3%; those with children under the age of 17 had a poverty rate of 72%. (2013-2017 ACS).

Springfield City leaders are aware of the astronomical poverty rates and have invested millions in soft skills training, case management, credit remediation, affordable housing, childcare and other supportive services that alleviate the effects of poverty. The Geek Foundation aims to further these efforts by working alongside the Northwest Project, Boys and Girls Club, Life360 Community Services, and others by teaching their beneficiaries skills that lead to living-wage employment, the final hurdle to self-sufficiency.

The Geek Foundation strives to offer one the very first completely free schools in the nation for learning computer programming and coding skills. Tech jobs are some of the highest paying positions across the world because more jobs are available than people with the skills to do them! 

By providing classes in software development, web development, IT and network security, robotics, microcontrollers, video game development, and more, The Geek Foundation is working to tackle unemployment in our community while increasing diversity and inclusion in the field.

We need your help to move people into high-paying, rewarding, and satisfying tech careers. Your donations go a long way toward improving the booming tech community in Springfield, Missouri and across the Ozarks. 

Help Us Connect the Growing Local Tech Sector with Employees in Need

With a growing industry of tech-employment giants like O'Reilly Automotive, Jack Henry, and Expedia, plus a multitude of local web and software development companies local to the Ozarks, our goal is to decrease poverty in our community by presenting the opportunity to learn the skills necessary to obtain employment within an educational environment, at no cost to the student. 

What We Do

Classes for adults will be available multiple times throughout the year, and The Geek Foundation will provide career coaching to help propel our program graduate students into local employment within the tech community. 

As part of our plan to grow our community by tackling poverty and increasing diversity in the tech industry, The Geek Foundation also offers fun, interactive classes for children, especially girls, by partnering with programs like Girls Who Code, CoderDojo, Adafruit, Raspberry Pi, and Arduino.

In these interactive courses, our community's youth learn how they can change the world with coding, and how to have a successful future in tech. By garnering interest at a young age, we strive to create an interest in tech that can be utilized in a great number of rewarding careers in Springfield, Missouri, and across the world. 

Where Your Donations Go

To begin our classes for adults to gain employment and offer ongoing classes for children, we need your help. The Geek Foundation is seeking operating expenses for the year to help us buy the hardware needed for each class such as computers, Arduinos and Raspberry Pi's, Wearables projects, and other circuitry and hardware needs for each student, operating expenses for a physical location to offer our classes to the community, and the ability to pay our fantastic staff of teachers, makers, and doers. 

Why Being A Geek is Awesome

Geeks are people who make their passions their life. By donating to our cause, you are creating a lifetime investment in the future of community—locally and globally—with opportunities for people to create life-long careers. We are incredibly thankful for your donations and investment in the future of tech. 

To help spread the word, please share on social media!

About Us

Mission Statement:

The Geek Foundation is a women-led 501(c)(3) non-profit that exists to provide free interactive education, resources, and support to future software engineers, techies, and makers—especially women, at-risk youth, and the underemployed. 

To learn more about The Geek Foundation, please visit our website: www.thegeekfoundation.org and sign-up for our newsletter. 

Be sure to follow us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram , and LinkedIn! 

Krista Peryer and Maranda Provance, Co-Founders

The Geek Foundation