Magic forward Aaron Gordon will work with his nonprofit, the Gordon Family Giving Foundation, to donate $300,000 to launch a STEM summer program at the University of Central Florida starting this year and lasting through 2025.
The sum given by Gordon will not only help the university acquire the high-tech tools it needs to educate students about science, technology, education, and math disciplines, but also ensure that the program is free to all participants. That in turn allows the program, called {CodeOrlando}, to target “underserved and underrepresented” young people in the Orlando area.
“Potential is universal, but opportunity is not,” Gordon says. “We partner with local schools, industries and technologists to provide opportunity, support and encouragement for our students, and we are proud to have UCF as a partner for this important program.”
In addition to the daily coding camp, the {CodeOrlando} program will also provide scholarships to mentors in the program, and gives eighth through 12th grade students the means to work with new technology, tour engineering sites, meet with individual employees who come from similar backgrounds, and develop internship opportunities.
Gordon has previously worked with Facebook on the {CodeOrlando} program through Facebook’s CodeFwd initiative, donating $6,000 and organizing with Orange County Public Schools along with his mother, Shelly Davis, who runs the foundation. The new, more substantive partnership with UCF furthers work Gordon has pursued for years.