2025 IMPACT REPORT

Helping Young People Find Their Way and Their Why

LETTER FROM OUR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Dear Friends and Partners,

In 2025, STEAM the Streets continued expanding our mission of helping young people see themselves in careers they may have never imagined. From classrooms in East Oakland to workforce programs in Massachusetts, we reached thousands of youth through storytelling, technology, and live experiences that connect identity with opportunity.

This year marked the launch of our “See It and Be It” program, bringing culturally responsive career-connected learning directly into schools. Our STEAM the Streets Career Exploration Ecosystem grew to more than 86,000 users, giving young people access to interactive career discovery anytime, anywhere. Our flagship “This Can Be You” live experience continued to inspire students in person, reaching 5,082 youth in 2025 alone.

At the same time, our storytelling social enterprise continued to grow—partnering with mission-driven organizations while creating meaningful opportunities to develop emerging creative talent within our own pipeline.

Behind every number is a young person discovering possibility—often for the first time.

We are deeply grateful to the educators, partners, and supporters who believe in the power of exposure, representation, and storytelling to change trajectories.

With gratitude,

Ben Gilbarg
Executive Director
STEAM the Streets

OUR PROGRAMS

“See It and Be It” Program

2025 was the inaugural program for “See It and Be It,” a program that brings our culturally responsive career-connected curriculum into the classroom in combination with teacher training, career planning workshops, and our “This Can Be You” live experience. Thanks to the Golden State Community Foundation, the “See It and Be It” program flourished at Madison Park Academy in East Oakland, a high school with a 100% student of color population. Through multimedia content and live experiences, students who rarely see themselves represented in STEAM careers were able to connect identity with opportunity, turning exposure into inspiration and inspiration into tangible career curiosity.

“It inspired me to take action in anything I choose to do in my life.”

-Alvaro Briseno, 10th-grade student, Madison Park Academy

report increased career awareness

0 %

“Seeing people that looked like me gave me the idea that I can definitely do it.”

-Petrona Acabal, 9th-grade student, Madison Park Academy

students exposed to STS’ career-connected curriculum

STEAM the Streets Career Exploration Ecosystem

In 2025, STEAM the Streets’ career exploration ecosystem continued its national growth through the STEAM the Streets Mobile App and BriteBound’s EvolveMe partnership platform, reaching a total of 86,000 users, including 41,000 new users in 2025 alone. By delivering interactive career exploration modules in fields like UI/UX Design, Marine Science, and Video Game Design, the platform made career discovery accessible anytime, anywhere.

of users report increased
career awareness and interest

0 %

Total Users 41,000
users in 2025

Pilot with MassHire Greater New Bedford: MassHire GNB partnered with STEAM the Streets for its summer YouthWorks program for ages 14-21. In the program, 124 participants utilized the STEAM the Streets app for its career readiness curriculum, with 113 of the youth completing the modules.

“Most, if not all, youth had one-on-ones with their supervisors and confirmed that the careers they had witnessed on the app were careers they had never imagined they could get into. They also expressed increased interest in many of the fields listed.”

– Lindsey Rocha, Youth Program Manager, MassHire Greater New Bedford Workforce Board.

“This Can Be You” Live Experience

“This Can Be You” remained a cornerstone of our in-person impact in 2025, directly serving 5,082 youth, contributing to our total number of 22,000 youth served in-person since 2016. Through a powerful multimedia assembly experience and partnerships including Rialto Unified School District and MassHire South Shore, students engaged with relatable career stories, music performances, and interactive content designed to shift mindsets.

Served In Person in 2025

Served In Person Since 2016

Administrators consistently reported heightened engagement, while students left with a clearer understanding of diverse career pathways and the confidence to envision themselves in roles they had never previously considered.

“This Can Be You” is an engaging presentation to get students thinking about all the different professions and seeing themselves in the STEAM fields.”

– Laura Ottaviani, District Math Coordinator, Randolph Public Schools

GREENING THE YOUTH

Promoting Career Pathways in Renewable Energy

With support from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, 2025 marked a major expansion of our renewable energy focus, including the release of our Offshore Wind career module. The module is featured in the STEAM the Streets App and the web, and includes three videos of varying lengths to orient young people with the wind industry.

Sonia Brito, Millwrights Local 1121

Cassie Brown, Project Engineer

Gregory Stubbs, Pile Drivers and Divers Local 56

We also piloted “This Can Be You” Wind Edition, a customized clean energy version of our main live experience. Presented in four schools and reaching more than 1,000 students, the program introduced youth to emerging clean energy careers through immersive storytelling and curriculum-aligned content. New funding from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center to take the Wind Edition on the road positions this initiative to scale nationally and connect students to the fast-growing green workforce pipeline.

Total Views

Students Performed For

Storytelling: A Social Enterprise

In 2025, our Storytelling Social Enterprise amplified impact by providing media production services that help mission-driven partners engage youth and communities. From producing a promotional video for Math Talk to supporting Britebound’s career awareness expansion, our creative work extended beyond outreach into ecosystem building.

organizations that we
partnered with

Total Views

We served as a key storytelling partner for the Richmond Park Equity Project funded by the Hellman Foundation, highlighting Earth Day at Unity Park, and Pasos/Thrive Thursdays, a collaborative event between Rising Juntos and West Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia. We produced the “Why We Ride” series with Rich City Rides funded by the Richmond Our Power Coalition.

STEAM the Streets supplied career exploration content for the inaugural mobile app built by the GEAR UP Community Achievement Project at San José State University. We also created identity-driven media including the Someone Else’s Child foundation video, using storytelling as a tool for equity, visibility, and inspiration.

Building Our Pipeline

Empowering New Leaders

young people
employed

In 2025, STEAM the Streets continued investing in internal talent development as a core part of our impact model. Sacramento State student Asia Butts advanced from social media intern to Social Media Manager, demonstrating the power of hands-on, mission-driven mentorship. We strengthened our creative capacity by hiring Spencer Smith as a full-time Video Editor and bringing on Johnnie Baba as a part-time Video Editor.

“As I progressed, I was challenged and given more responsibilities, and that helped me level up in other areas of my everyday life.”

– Asia Butts, STEAM the Streets Social Media Manager

Interns Tashi Samdup and Ryl Gilbarg continued to grow in their roles. We also started the process of becoming an intern partner with Drexel University in Philadelphia. By growing talent from within, we are not only building our organization’s future, but modeling real career pathways for the youth we serve.

FutureLink Collab

Along with partners Transformative Culture Project and Boston Explorers, we started the FutureLink Collab, a hands-on workshop series designed for youth aged 14–24, aimed at connecting creativity, career exploration, and community. We held our first workshop in October, that was focused on music production. We presented our music producer career exploration lesson, and mentored aspiring beat makers in a hands-on creative session.

21 youth attended the workshop and participants shared their takeaways on an exit survey:

“I liked how the instructors expressed and made sure everyone knew that they could make a living off of being creative and making beats, i.e., talking about average pay and the HOW to make money.”

Two additional workshops have been planned for 2026.

Amplifying Opportunities

Our Amplifying Opportunities event in Richmond, hosted at CoBiz, brought together more than 70 attendees including students, educators, elected officials, creatives, and youth-serving organizations in a powerful celebration of youth activation through STEAM.

Inspirational remarks from community leaders, including Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia, Albany Mayor Robin D. Lopez, and The Hidden Genius Project’s Janay Osborne, energized the audience. A live “This Can Be You” performance by DJ Anghelli created an immersive experience, reinforcing our mission to help underserved youth see themselves in emerging careers.

amplify group ben wes christina kaila janay

In The Press

Our mission to bridge the opportunity gap is gaining national momentum, with features in Forbes and Nation Today validating our unique blend of culture and career exploration. By scaling our reach through the ASA EvolveMe partnership and making tech relatable through music, we are proving that meeting students where they are is the key to diversifying the future workforce. These articles aren’t just press—they are a testament to a movement that is successfully turning aspiration into economic opportunity.