Since 2013, over 1,000 students have walked through our doors eager to build, make art that matters, and create lasting impact on their community. Our first graduating class was a small cohort of 17 students and this number continues to grow every year. In this ongoing series, we’ll be sharing stories of our amazing alumni and how your donations fuel our fearless builders creating new worlds!
Meet Carina! 🛠️
Freshman year of college starts this week for Carina Lucia, a recent Girls Garage graduate. Carina is attending California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, where she’s enrolled in the Construction Management program, a decision she attributes to her experiences at Girls Garage. “I had such a hands-on experience at Girls Garage,” she says. “It really changed my life.”
Like many of our students, Carina joined Girls Garage when she was just ten years old. Over the years, she’s built quite the impressive portfolio of projects with Girls Garage: Murphy beds for transitional housing shelters, colorful mosaics for a community garden, an ADA-accessible sauna for a land stewardship collective, and more.
The sauna (Carina can be seen in the light blue hoodie raising walls!) is among her favorite projects because it required close attention to technical detail. “Everything had to be watertight, slats had to be at a certain angle, and there were legal regulations that had to be followed,” she says in an enthusiastic voice that could only belong to an aspiring construction manager. “It really opened me up to the world of construction with requirements and codes. I hadn’t experienced that before.”
Thanks to our alumni network (spearheaded by Director of Development Kristy Higares), Carina gained more real-world experience this summer through an externship with Turner Construction. While at Turner, she learned about different aspects of the construction industry, from procurement to safety, and visited current construction sites. The experience affirmed what Carina already suspected—she wanted to work on a job site. “I couldn’t sit at a desk all day when the alternative is seeing a project come to life,” she says.
Although Carina is excited to dig into construction management at Cal Poly, she’s bracing herself to be one of few women in the major. Fortunately, her years at Girls Garage in a supportive, all-female and non-binary environment have instilled in her a deep sense of confidence and capability.
Your donations support the next generation of tradespeople like Carina, who has taken seven free classes at Girls Garage. Sign up to become a monthly supporter today! Whether you give $5 or $50, giving monthly is one of the easiest ways for you to help us sustain our free teen programming so that girls and gender-expansive youth continue to have access to hands-on education for years to come.