Creator Club
After-School Club
TomTod’s Creator Club connects middle schoolers’ imaginations with real opportunities to contribute to local organizations during their after-school or out-of-school time programs.
Middle schoolers want to explore outside the classroom, create with their hands, and have their voices heard. Creator Club invites middle schoolers to brainstorm ideas and create needed community projects with local organizations.
Through an 8-week Creator Club collaboration between Stark Library and Crenshaw Middle School, students provided feedback, generated ideas, and pitched plans for how to make spaces in the new library more engaging for youth.
During Creator Club, middle schoolers not only draw, build, and imagine through hands-on challenges but also have the opportunity to serve their community with their ideas, perspectives, and creations.
Creator Club is specifically designed to help students develop vital 21st-century and social-emotional skills like:
- Empathic Research
- Interviewing and Listening Skills
- Creative and Critical Thinking
- Teamwork and Collaboration
- Goal Setting and Community Service
What If You Could
Project-Based Mentoring
What If You Could is a project-based mentorship program guiding teams of middle schoolers through the project management process to prototype, pitch, and pilot their ideas in their community. Supported by a TomTod Adventure Curator, each team is connected to community resources, idea advocates, and seed funding to launch their idea.
Open to middle schoolers who have previously been through either What If 101 or Camp What If, participants build off previous experiences to work towards a shared goal with dedicated peers and trusted mentors. Together, they pitch ideas to community partners, create hands-on prototypes, conduct real-world research, and initiate working pilots of their idea.
