Opportunities From: United Way of East Central Iowa

Future City Iowa is looking for volunteers to help with the Regional Competition in Ames, Iowa on January 17, 2026! The theme this year is, Farm to Table, and there are lots of ways to get involved, including virtual support!

For all of our Future City volunteer roles, we are looking for adults who are willing to support middle school students in exploring STEM careers. Training and rubrics will be provided for volunteers where necessary, and this is also a great opportunity for team building as volunteers can be grouped together.

Please complete the Future City Volunteer Sign-up Google Form here: 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdL5RqbctnhlYZl2DLNi3gsdHnk2VjYTIu7QWnW6ifbt1WCfA/viewform?usp=dialog

Once you have completed the form and selected your areas of interest, the Future City Regional Coordinator will reach out with you to confirm details! 

CoderDojo events aim to help K–5 students, their families, and their supporters “see themselves” in STEM. Our events are open house style, with open-ended “stations” that participants can explore through hands-on activities.  We need volunteers to help mentor at these stations with the primary goals of welcoming participants, encouraging them, and helping them if they experience unproductive struggles. Volunteers do not need to be experts in STEM, but can learn more as they volunteer as well.

We have two clubs that run twice per school year for 10 weeks. For the 3rd–5th grade club, facilitators will have students do a sisterhood activity (ice breaker) and introduce a coding concept or show an example project to teach them something. They may also share a bit about their own career. Mentors can also share about their careers, and will focus on helping the students as they work on their projects. Students in this club primarily use Scratch or LEGO Spike Prime robots for their projects. Volunteers do not need to help at every club meeting, but we are able to increase capacity with more volunteers.

We have two clubs that run twice per school year for 10 weeks.  For the 6th–12th grade club, facilitators will help kick off the club meetings, and may teach concepts that provide a foundation for their projects. Facilitators and mentors will help answer questions during work time, take project teams to visit their business “clients,” help students think through their project ideas, and help install projects as necessary. The fall club focuses on a holiday light installation showcase that happens on the last day of the session. The student teams partner with NewBo District businesses to design, create, and install programmable LED projects. Volunteers do not have to be present at each of the club meetings, but we appreciate any time volunteers can provide to help students with skills around project management, design ideas/aesthetics, programming, team work, and safety moving around the neighborhood. We also hope to have a second project option for returning students where a subset of the older club will learn how to add a sensor to our existing Raspberry Pi Pico “light boxes.” For this project, it would be helpful to have people familiar with electronics, circuits, and prototyping. Skills around electrical engineering, platform development, prototyping, and testing are appreciated.