For Release: Jan 9, 2024–The Bezos Family Foundation has awarded a “Director’s Gift” to SystemsGo, the Fredericksburg, Texas-based nonprofit organization that provides curricula and training in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education to high schools in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Oregon, Oklahoma, and Abu Dhabi.
“It is simply wonderful!” said Rebekah Hyatt, Executive Director of SystemsGo. “We are so blessed by the Bezos Family Foundation directors and their continued support of our mission to positively affect the trajectory of students’ lives.”
The funds, totaling $54,000, will help support the innovative SystemsGo program, originally developed at Fredericksburg High School in 1996, now being used in 59 schools.
“We are very grateful to the Bezos Family Foundation directors for understanding the impact SystemsGo has on students and their futures,” said George Burns, SystemsGo Program Director. “This generous gift will do much to help ignite tomorrow’s innovators.”
The Bezos Family Foundation is a private, independent foundation established by Jackie and Mike Bezos, whose vision is that all young people are prepared to achieve their full potential and make a meaningful contribution to society.
Their annual director giving is an opportunity for the Foundation’s leadership to support organizations doing meaningful work that aligns with the mission, but that may not necessarily be a fit for a standard grant.
SystemsGo is an innovative hands-on high school science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) set of courses that uses project-based learning to stimulate 21st Century workplace skills.
The upper-level students design, develop, test, and analyze professional-grade, free-flight, sounding rockets for research applications.
- Tsiolkovsky Level students design and test vehicles to launch a one-pound payload to an apogee of one mile.
- Oberth Level students attempt flight beyond Mach 1.
- Goddard Level students design and develop a vehicle capable of sending a scientific payload to an altitude of 50,000 feet, in collaboration with the U.S. Army at White Sands Missile Range.
More than 150 rockets will be tested this spring at the five annual rocket launch events hosted by SystemsGo.
More information is available online at www.systemsgo.org, via email at info@systemsgo.org, or by calling 830-997-3567.