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Willow Hill's 'Techie Camp' sees huge growth in 2024; watch video at camp
Late Dr. Gayle Jackson's vision now a 6-week program with 240 campers
Willow Hill
Donya Glenn, an instructor at the Willow Hill Heritage and Renaissance Center's Techie Camp, helps fourth-grader Blaine Smith navigate his computer. - photo by Jason Martin

Willow Hill Techie Camp 2024

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The Willow Hill Heritage and Renaissance Center launched Techie Camp in 2022 under the leadership of the late Gayle Jackson, Ph.D. Now, in 2024, Dr. Jackson’s original vision has grown in just two years from serving 25 children to the 240 who are attending an expanded Techie Camp this summer.

Leaning on her relationship with the Nordson Corporation and its partnership with TECH CORPS, Jackson launched the summer computer science education program. TECH CORPS, a national K-12 computer science education nonprofit group, provided free computer programming and app development summer camps to 58 Bulloch County middle school students in 2022 and 2023.

With Dr. Jackson's passing in 2023, the technology program’s future was uncertain. However, her family and TECH CORPS wanted Dr. Jackson's hopes of bringing access to high quality science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education summer programs to Bulloch County students to continue. 

Dr. Gayle Latricia Martin Jackson

So, the Techie Camp program for 2024 was expanded from providing two weeks of computer science education to six full weeks and from being available to only middle school students to now being open to third through eighth grade Bulloch County students. 

The 2024 program is giving 240 students the opportunity to experience quality, hands-on computer science education – 10 times the number of students from the initial camp in 2022.

The camp started on June 3 and will run through July 19. The following computing topics are being offered: Programming with Scratch and MakeCode Arcade, App Development, Digital Animation, and Robotics with Lego Mindstorms EV3 and Makeblock.

On Wednesday, members of the TECH CORPS team, including Chief Operating Officer Carla Easley, visited Willow Hill to tour the camp that Dr. Jackson’s son-in-law, Vincent Flowers, and the program staff members are providing for elementary and middle school students.

“We are delighted to help facilitate the work Dr. Jackson began in 2022 and to continue her vision to bring computer science education to Bulloch County students,” Easley said.  

Willow Hill
Dr. Carla Easley, Chief Operating Officer for TECH CORPS, looks over the work of third-grader Jayceon Rice, left, and fifth-grader Jonas Lee Wednesday at Willow Hill’s Techie Camp. TECH CORPS has been one of the primary sources of funding the camp since the late Dr. Gayle Jackson founded it in 2022. - photo by Jason Martin


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