Volunteer
Volunteer
Make a difference in our students’ lives by joining us as a volunteer.
Make an impact as a Lumity volunteer
Make a difference
As a Lumity volunteer, you make a tangible impact on our students’ lives. No matter your time commitment, any help you can give creates a ripple effect that can change the course of our students’ lives.
Help your community
When you work with Lumity students, you become a part of something bigger than yourself. As a volunteer, you’re able to immerse yourself in the Chicago community and help make our city better.
Teach and learn new skills
Lumity volunteers teach our students skills they’ve learned in the field — and have the opportunity to develop their leadership skills along the way.
Meet the next STEM leaders
As a Lumity volunteer, you not only form connections with other STEM professionals, you also meet the next generation of STEM leaders.
Volunteer opportunities
We’re looking for STEM professionals who have a story worth sharing! Let us know you are interested, and we will connect you with a professional speaking coach who will help you prepare to be a STEM Talk Speaker.
- Plan on spending approximately 2-3 hours getting prepared for your first speaking engagement.
- We ask speakers to do at least two virtual STEM Talks each year.
Career Site Visits provide students with interactive experiences about the corporate host’s industry, workplace setting, job opportunities, and responsibilities.
- Corporate virtual Site Visits usually are about 3 hours long on a school day.
- Lumity has a template to help you and your colleagues structure the experience.
- Visits are often touring your offices, meeting STEM leaders to learn about their career paths, and completing a job-related interactive project that relates to your core business.
- Group size ranges from 25-30 students.
One Day Challenges are events where student teams work to solve a problem—either a real-world issue or a business challenge. Corporate volunteers work with the students from forming initial ideas to presenting their solutions. A panel of professionals then judge all presentations.
- One Day Challenges usually are about 5 hours in person on a school day or 3 hours virtually on Google Meets.
- Lumity has a template to help you and your colleagues structure your unique experience for the students.
Group size ranges from 25-30 students.
Your company can host a One Day Challenge and/or you, and other colleagues can volunteer at a One Day Challenge hosted by another company where a larger group of students will be participating.
Mentoring
A trusted advisor, who will help our youth explore different options this world has to offer them and give their advice and feedback. Someone who will set goals and objectives for their mentee to reach and be the best support system they can be as our mentee strives for excellence.
Criteria to become mentor:
- Great leadership & communication skills.
- Must have the ability of listening.
- Able to provide advice and feedback
- Approachable and Accessible.
- Willing to devote an adequate amount of time to seeing growth in their mentee and ensuring their success.
Commitment:
- Mentors are expected to frequently have conversations regularly with their mentee as they see fit to both mentor and mentee’s schedule.
- Preferred mentors and mentees have at least one in person meeting per month in a public forum.
- Check-in reports will be required at the end of each month documenting their sessions with their mentees.
How it works:
- The process begins with an in-person or virtual event where our mentees get to meet our available mentors.
- The mentees will get to listen and learn about each mentor and from what they hear make their own decision who they feel is best fitted for them.
- Once matched mentors and mentees will discuss their schedules and pick the times they see best to communicate throughout their time during this process.
- During sessions, mentors will speak from their own personal experiences provide guidance to our youth as they are navigating life.
Volunteers work side-by-side or virtually with Lumity youth to review their draft resumes and provide constructive feedback such as layout, format, content, and spelling and grammar. Once the resume is ready, using a mock interview guide provided by Lumity staff, volunteers are paired with one to three youths to practice and rate their interviews. These essential opportunities help the youth hone their skills and step into the workforce with their best foot forward.
CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS (CPS) SAFETY POLICY PLEASE NOTE: All volunteers working virtually with high school students must have a CPS background check completed before volunteering. We’ll provide you with the necessary details to obtain your CPS background clearance.
Change student outcomes with us
Ready to volunteer or have any questions? Contact us to find out more.
Have a question about volunteering?
Contact Amber Taylor, Corporate & Volunteer Relationship Manager at:
STEM Talks Speakers
View the full list of our STEM Talks volunteers and learn about the STEM professionals working to inspire our students.
Donate
Your support makes a big impact on our Chicago STEM programs. We welcome any contribution amount from partners or donors.
Sponsor
Looking for an opportunity to sponsor a cause? Fund our Chicago STEM programs and shape the next STEM leaders.
Partner
Help us bridge the gap between students and STEM opportunities. Become a school, corporate, or community partner.