Lawrence Livermore National Security announces recipients of the 2025 Community Gift Program

Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC (LLNS), the contract manager for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), has announced the recipients for the 2025 LLNS Community Gift Program. These gifts, totaling $220,000, reflect LLNS' commitment to local communities. The LLNS Community Gift Program is funded entirely by non-federal Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC funds.

LLNS received applications totaling more than $1,000,000 in requests. Fifty-one applications were selected for awards totaling $220,000 through a committee review process. The program, which launched in 2008, serves children in the Tri-Valley area as well as Contra Costa, Santa Clara and San Joaquin counties, with a focus on literacy, science, technology, engineering and math education, and cultural arts. The program considers grants from eligible domestic IRS-qualified 501(c)(3) entities registered in California dedicated to advancing STEM and STEAM programs in the counties surrounding LLNL, without consideration of race, sex, color, religious creed, national origin or other protected classes of the requesting organizations or members. Eligibility details can be found online.

The following organizations received awards:

Contra Costa County  

• All Ages Recreation Downtown (AARD): To provide a variety of educational, artistic, scientific and musical activity stations to foster children’s creativity, motor skills and foundational knowledge in science, art and music.
• Assistance League Diablo Valley: The Assistance League Diablo Valley’s Elementary Arts Discovery Program provides monthly bilingual art lessons, culturally relevant projects, and supplies to second- through fourth-grade students to foster creativity, artistic skills and academic development through exposure to diverse materials, techniques and art concepts.
• Bay Area Rescue Mission: To provide vulnerable children with academic enrichment and creative opportunities using STEAM supplies.
• California High School – Computer Science Program: To provide high quality, hands-on, project-based physical computing opportunities with the use of PiTop CS and Robotics kits.
• California High School – Photography Program: To integrate digital tools into its year-round darkroom photography program, helping students continue exploring the artistic, scientific and technical foundations of analog photography.
• Diablo Valley College – Student Veteran Resource Center: To enhance its study space with upgraded technology, collaborative tools and STEM-focused equipment, creating a comprehensive “one-stop-shop” that supports veterans and military-connected students in achieving academic, personal and professional success.
• Down Syndrome Connection of the Bay Area: To enhance its THRIVE, Music Therapy and New and Young Families programs, supporting skill development, social connection and expressive opportunities for individuals with Down syndrome.
• Growing Healthy Kids: To provide hands-on, standards-based STEM instruction in outdoor garden labs across 22 elementary schools, enabling students to engage in real-world scientific inquiry and experiential learning.
• Impactt Kids, Inc.: To expand computer science education for rural youth by providing curriculum, technology resources and program support that equip students with essential STEM skills for future success.
• Keyz 2 the Future: To deliver its STEAM Pathways for Healing and Innovation program, an 8-week series that combines hands-on STEM activities with trauma-informed art and wellness practices to inspire Richmond youth, build technical and emotional skills and expand pathways into STEM fields.
• J. Douglas Adams Middle School: To expand its robotics resources by reducing the student-to-robot kit ratio, enabling nearly 300 students to more fully engage in daily coding and engineering activities.
• Miramonte High School, Miramonte Robotics Team: To purchase durable motors, metal components and fabrication tools that will strengthen students’ hands-on engineering and robotics design skills while enabling more competitive robot builds and expanded STEM outreach to local middle schools.
• Monte Vista High School, Red Tie Robotics: To purchase a CNC machine, a 3D printer and related tooling to improve fabrication precision, reduce production time and provide students with hands-on experience using industry-standard engineering equipment.
• Ruth Bancroft Garden, Inc.: To STEM-based Children’s Education Program, enabling hands-on, inquiry-driven activities that teach youth about plant adaptation, biodiversity and landscaping.
• San Ramon Valley Education Foundation: To enhance STEAM learning in its Imagineering enrichment program.
• Stoneman Elementary School, Pittsburg: To strengthen hands-on STEAM, math and reading activities, fostering engaging and equitable learning experiences for their Title I student community and families.

Alameda County

• American Association of University Women (AAUW) Foundation, Fremont: To provide a hands-on event designed to introduce third- to fifth-grade girls and their mothers in the Tri-City area to the excitement of STEM.
• Averroes High School, Fremont: To equip high-school students with modern biology lab tools, interactive experiment kits and technology-enhanced learning resources to create a comprehensive, ethical and engaging STEM program that prepares students for advanced coursework, college pathways and future careers in science and biotechnology.
• Choose College Educational Inc.: To support two student-centered initiatives that build STEM awareness and college readiness by providing elementary participants with hands-on NGSS-aligned STEM kits and career-exploration activities designed to spark early interest and confidence in the STEM field.
• Curious Five: To provide Tri-Valley students with accessible, hands-on learning that builds curiosity, confidence and foundational STEM skills using LEGO Spike Robots.
• Fertile GroundWorks: To expand its garden with new beds, fruit trees, perennials, seeds and durable tools, providing a hands-on STEAM learning environment where youth and community members explore plant science, sustainable agricultural engineering, ecosystem design and real-world mathematical reasoning while increasing fresh produce for food-insecure families.
• Glad Tidings Community Development Corporation: To provide youth with hands-on STEM activities, materials and workshops that build technical skills and spark interest in future STEM careers.
• Hack the Hood: To provide essential supplies for low-income youth participating in its standards-based STEM pipeline programs — which include coding, web development and data science training — designed to remove barriers, build technical skills and create pathways into high-growth technology careers.
• Harvest Park Middle School, Pleasanton: To update its outdated STEM library collection with modern, engaging and curriculum-aligned nonfiction books that will inspire student interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and support continued academic excellence.
• Ignite Pathways: To expand its STEAM programs and empower students of all ages with hands-on technical skills, leadership opportunities and equitable access to creative, technology-driven learning experiences.
• Junior Center of Art and Science: To expand its Digital Arts & Creative Technology Program, which provides Oakland youth with hands-on STEAM learning through project-based animation, digital design and creative technology that builds technical skills, problem-solving abilities and 21st-century STEM readiness.
• King’s Classical Academy, Livermore: To launch an honors-level astronomy course by purchasing a high-quality telescope and optics equipment, enabling students to engage in hands-on STEM learning through celestial observation, astrophysics exploration and real-world astronomical practices.
• Little Miracles, Inc.: To provide infants and toddlers from low-income Tri-Valley families with early-learning STEM foundations through books, alphabet toys, sensory materials and trilingual learning tablets that support language development, cognitive growth and school readiness.
• Livermore High School – GravitechX Robotics Team: To support a student-led robotics program where students learn leadership, teamwork and technical skills to prepare them for STEM careers.
• Livermore Music: To provide musical instruments, mentorship in music and logistical support to all students seeking a music education.
• Local Ecology and Agriculture Fremont (LEAF): To expand its K–14 STEAM programs that use urban gardens as living science labs, providing hands-on learning in soil science, regenerative agriculture and environmental sustainability to empower students as future environmental stewards.
• Oakland Children’s Fairyland, Inc.: To support the Fairyland Flora & Fauna education program, which provides access to hands-on life science programming for K–5 students from schools in a safe, creative, outdoor space that engages students of all learning orientations.
• Our Savior Lutheran School: To purchase modern 3D printers and filament to expand hands-on STEM learning, enabling students in grades TK–8 to design, prototype and create functional projects that build technical skills, creativity and real-world problem-solving abilities.
• Piedmont Makers, Highlander Robotics, Castro Valley: To offer high-school students access to engineering through competitive robotics in an innovative, engaging and collaborative environment.
• Quest Science Center: To support hands-on afterschool and weekend STEM enrichment programs with equipment, replacement parts and consumable supplies used to deliver interactive science and engineering activities.
• Roots Community Health Center: To support hands-on, research-focused STEAM learning experiences that equip Oakland youth with foundational scientific skills and exposure to real-world public health careers.
• Salaam Food Pantry: To enhance students’ access to reliable STEM learning tools.
• The Salvation Army, Alameda County: To expand accessible music education programs for low-income youth.
• Self eStem: To provide hands-on STEM learning, mentoring and leadership development for girls.
• Tri-Valley Haven: To provide educational tools and materials that help children in its shelters continue learning, build stability and support their healing and development.
• Z-Cares Foundation: To generate mental health awareness and reduce the stigma of mental illness within our community.

San Joaquin County

• Boys & Girls Clubs of Tracy: To help prepare youth for the rapidly growing STEM job market by providing hands-on STEM activities.
• José M. Hernández Reaching for the Stars Foundation: To inspire youth to find passion in STEM education through the Science Blast Program.
• Merrill F. West High School, Wolfpack Robotics Club: To equip its robots with advanced VEX sensors, enabling students to develop more accurate and consistent autonomous coding skills and deepen their hands-on experience in robotics engineering and programming.
• Millennium Charter High School, Tracy: To purchase essential lab equipment that will strengthen NGSS-aligned biology, chemistry and physics instruction by providing students with hands-on, college-level STEM learning experiences.
• Tokay Science Boosters: To create a learning environment that nurtures high-school students’ growth and encourages the development of new and creative concepts through engineering competition-level robotics.
• Youth Eagles Aviation and Aerospace: To inspire the next generation of aviation, aerospace leaders and STEM innovators through hands-on, unique and educational experiences.

Santa Clara County

• Palo Alto Youth Robotics Association: To support hands-on STEM learning opportunities for local high-school students through their independent, student-run robotics program.
• Science is Elementary: To foster interest in science and a sense of belonging among young children, especially from historically disadvantaged communities, by bringing science learning into homes and communities, addressing the lack of high-quality science education and diversity represented in the field of STEM.

Statewide

• Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers: To engage students and parents from the Bay Area in hands-on STEM activities and college-readiness resources.
• Wayfinder Family Services: To provide an early intervention program serving Alameda and Contra Costa counties to assist children who are blind, visually impaired or multi-disabled overcome challenges, strengthen their development and reach their greatest potential.

LLNS manages LLNL for the Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration. LLNS is comprised of Bechtel, the largest project management contractor in the United States; the University of California, the world’s largest public research institution; and BWXT Government Group, Inc. and Amentum, the top two DOE nuclear facilities contractors.

For more information regarding the LLNS Community Gift Program, see the LLNS website.