By JAMES BELL
Hays Post
Downtown Hays will soon be home to STEM Harvest, a nonprofit science, technology, engineering and math learning center.
As construction work continues at its future home in 507 Main and final preparations for the project are made, a recent $10,000 grant award from NetWorked for Change will help ensure the project starts off right.
The To Infinity and Beyond award will allow STEM Harvest to open with a pre- and post-event survey and an event for up to 40 children and a parent.
“The event itself will either be in March or potentially early April,” said building owner and STEM Harvest founder Dallas Haselhorst. “We will be presenting at the NetWorked for Change convention in Wichita in May. So we will have the event obviously, and all the post items wrapped up well before then, so we can present, essentially, to a lot of other folks across the state trying to make a difference in their communities as well.”
The STEM Harvest opening event will allow participants to learn about the facility and the services it will provide to the community once fully opened to the public.
“Anywhere from 20 to 40, kids will be able to come in, learn a little bit more of everything STEM Harvest can do consolidated into a day,” Haselhorst said. “And so it kind of introduces kids to all of those different aspects, especially 3D printing, coding, some of the electronics aspects, and just give them an opportunity to kind of see some of those things and what we'll do as part of that grant.”
“We purchased that with a couple of goals in mind. The main one was going to be a 501(c)3 nonprofit called STEM Harvest that really kind of brings technology skills and related skills to kids of all ages,” Haselhorst said.
And now, with the center's opening, he said area youth would be able to use it to explore various aspects of STEM.
“All of the kids are going to have to do the three core tenets, meaning you're going to have to get introduced to those, which is coding, the electronics aspect and 3D printing,” Haselhorst said.
But from there, they can build on their own desires and interests.
“They're really learning the skills, the underlying skills to do some of the basics, and then just build off of that,” Haselhorst said. “It's a project-based approach to learning that gets whatever they're passionate about and lets them go.”
In conjunction with the kickoff event, two surveys will solidify how potential students would utilize the space.
“The pre-survey will be open to the public to try and get some input from parents, educators, maybe even kids,” Haselhorst said.
The survey can be found at https://stemharvest.org/pre-survey/
“And then also, we'll do a really quick post-event survey that will be primarily from the kids that actually attend the event,” Haselhorst said. “The main thing is that we just want to make sure that they are getting something out of it, and they're going to want to come back eventually.”
And while opening the years-long project to the public is a priority for the space, remodeling the building for other tenants, including his own TreeTop Security, is also well underway, and office space in the building should be ready for occupancy soon.
“The three front spaces probably required the most amount of work out of everything,” Haselhorst said. “STEM Harvest has been receiving updates throughout.”
Much of the major construction work is done.
“There's a couple of rooms back there that are, other than paint, they're done,” Haselhorst said. “There's still some work to do, no doubt, but we're definitely moving in the right direction. And now, with some additional funding for some supplies and stuff, we can definitely help on some of those aspects.”