A crisis has a way of highlighting realities — and that’s especially evident in education.

The challenges resulting from COVID-19 have further exposed the immense and persistent inequities within the United States’ education system. Successfully addressing these challenges takes dedication, work and heart, which is why Allstate is pleased to be a decade-long partner to Lumity.org. Lumity provides teens and young adults from underserved communities in the Chicagoland area with transformational experiences to prepare them for lifelong careers in STEM. Through our partnership, Allstate helps enhance Lumity’s successful youth programs through our corporate volunteers, fundraising efforts and technology expertise. Here are just a few examples:

• Allstate’s corporate volunteers work hand-in-hand with Lumity staff and students, helping bring their STEM programs to life. Through Real World Projects, Allstate volunteers collaborate with teens to identify and design a STEM solution to a community or city challenge and serve as adjudicators as students present their solutions. These projects are a key experience within Lumity’s immersive STEM Career Prep program, supported by Allstate and embedded in Chicagoland schools, that builds students’ STEM career skills over their four years of high school. Lumity’s STEM Career Program blossomed from Allstate’s lead partnership with the organization in 2015 for its Student Based Enterprise, a 12-week program where students worked with corporate volunteers every Saturday to create websites for nonprofit organizations.

• Lumity students gain real career experience at the Allstate Campus. Allstate also hosts Lumity students at the Northbrook, IL campus for workplace tours and experiences. Last year, 30+ Lumity students participated in a One Day Challenge to brainstorm ways the company could enhance the customer experience using STEM-related concepts.

• Allstate provides Lumity with tech expertise and business acumen to grow its organization. Allstate applied its forward-thinking mindset and technology expertise to reimagine Lumity’s job board, NPO.net. The new platform design enables the organization to provide a professional careers site for jobseekers, employers and nonprofits while simultaneously increasing revenue to invest in its student programs. Since its roll out in 2010, Allstate has continued to support the job platform by evaluating potential site enhancements and analyzing the performance of its advertising packages.

Up next is Allstate’s support for Lumity at the 2020 Virtual Grace Hopper Celebration, the largest gathering of women in technology with nearly 25,000 attendees annually, to be held September 29 – October 2. Even with the cancellation of the vGHC career fair, Allstate will still honor its donation commitment to Lumity in the amount of $2020 for vGHC2020 to continue empowering underserved youth in accessing STEM education and careers. The donation will help Lumity expand its STEM programs, particularly with youth in the south side and south suburban neighborhoods, and to inspire the next generation Grace Hopper Celebration attendees!

Querube Della Cella, Lumity’s Relationship Manager, describes the importance of Allstate’s work with Lumity. “Many of our students only know Allstate from TV commercials and don’t realize the full scope of STEM career opportunities that are available. When our students work with Allstate volunteers, they start to say, ‘I want to work here when I graduate.’ It is really amazing to see how the volunteers make the students feel so welcome and comfortable and to watch all the ideas the students come up with by working with them.”

Allstate is currently exploring ways to engage with students while safely practicing social distancing. Individual volunteer opportunities are available, and details can be found at https://lumity.org/get-involved/. No technology experience required.