Tech Trek is Trekking along!  By Mary Miller and Lori Franz

 Excitement is building for Tech Trek 2023 and we are delighted to see our chapter participating again.  The Tech Trek committee has begun the process of promoting the program and recruiting residential and virtual campers for this summer.  Our target schools have been notified and provided materials. The principals and key teachers are eager to help us identify and recruit students.  Funding for us to recruit up to 7 on-campus and 3 virtual campers has been approved by the board. However, we have learned that there are 148 more requests for camper spots than will be available at the 2023 Davis and Sonoma camps. That means that every Northern California branch planning to send girls to those camps most likely would be limited to sending a maximum of three campers to residential Tech Trek in 2023.  We are disappointed, but remain hopeful that in the final allocation we will receive more slots.

Our campers will be attending the UC Davis camp to be held July 9-15.  The Davis camp will have a variety of on-campus field trips and experiences, including visits to the nationally known School of Veterinary Medicine. Also important, campers will live in the residence halls and have a great campus experience, which can be life changing for girls from disadvantaged situations.   Our chapter is part of the AAUW Tech Trek mission in California that in 2022 received over 1,500 nominations from more than 400 teachers at nearly 350 schools, resulting in over 1,000 applications from 94 branches narrowed down to nearly 750 selected and alternate campers.  We can all be proud of the opportunities this AAUW program creates for future women scientists, engineers, technologists and mathematicians.