The Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence has been awarded a $20,000 grant to expand its STEM club, which will allow for twice as many kids to receive mentoring related to careers in science, technology, engineering and math.

The club piloted the STEM programming at Woodlawn and Cordley elementary schools in 2015, and starting next month it will expand to include Pinckney and Schwegler, said Hannah Odette, director of grants for Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence.

The 2016 Kansas STEM Mentoring Initiative grant is awarded by the Kansas Volunteer Commission in partnership with Kansas Mentors. The club received the same grant this year, which allowed for it to begin the pilot program. In the past year, Odette said she has seen students’ level of interest increase.

“There were kids that weren’t at all interested in STEM, and now they’re really excited about it,” she said.

Part of that excitement might be that the club’s STEM-related activities — with the guidance of someone from the field — allow students to build and use their imagination, Odette said. For instance, one activity gives students a “makerspace tub” filled with cardboard, straws, rubber bands, craft sticks, plastic bottles and other household items, and students might be asked to build a bridge, or be allowed to build whatever they want.

“It’s free thinking time,” she said. “It’s awesome for the kids, because they don’t always get that at school.”

Odette said that this year, 120 kids participated, and that number will double starting next month. One session is held per week, and in the summer the kids take a field trip to a STEM-related destination, such as Science City or the LegoLand Discovery Center.

According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, STEM jobs in the United States have grown at three times the pace of non-STEM jobs in the past 10 years. Odette said that the STEM club, which is targeted at students in third through fifth grades, allows participants to learn more about STEM career paths from people currently working or studying in such fields.

“(They) come in and chat with the kids and tell them about what they do, and give them some ideas of what life after school looks like,” she said.

The Boys & Girls Club provides after-school care at all 14 of the public elementary schools in Lawrence and also runs a Teen Center for older students. Odette said that the club is looking for additional sources of funding in order to expand its STEM programming to all of its sites.