It started with a kid who wished for a robotics kit.

When Tara first moved here, an abundance of toys simply wasn't in the cards, let alone STEM ones. Science kits, building sets, the robotics kits she'd daydream about: they sat on shelves in stores she walked past, not on the floor of her room.

So she made do. She tinkered with whatever was around, asked a lot of questions, and slowly found her own way into science and math. Eventually, that curiosity carried her forward. But she never forgot how close she came to never discovering it at all, and how much a single kit or one encouraging mentor might have changed things sooner.

Here's the part that keeps us up at night: Tara wasn't rare. Across the greater Philadelphia area, there are thousands of students exactly like her, kids with the same spark and none of the tools. Bright, capable, curious, and quietly left out.

That's our why. STEM Spark Initiative exists to close that gap, one donated kit, one workshop, and one mentor at a time, so a kid's first robotics kit isn't a wish. It's just Tuesday.