Help Us Expand Digital Literacy & STEAM Education

Hi! I'm the publisher and founder of beanz magazine. We'd like your help donating 6000+ free copies in 2024 to under resourced kids in Title 1 schools who also show up in shelters, food banks, and other places.

Imagine you’re 11 years old, homeless, living with your mom in a shelter and attending grade school during the day. In class, you see better off kids with a phone sharing a video and laughs. A new phone is more than your mom can afford. But you might be very interested in computers. How can you begin to learn how to use technology if you can’t afford technology? Our magazine is one answer. You can make a difference for as little as $6.

In 2021, there were 21 million US kids ages 6-11 and 8 million were students in grades 3-7 in Title 1 schools. Kids these ages also show up at food banks, homeless shelters, and battered women’s shelters. Their life circumstances make it difficult for them to keep up with digital skills that their better off peers have ready access to in their home environments.

Most kids 8-12 years old also begin to use phones, tablets, and laptops to get information and to interact with the world. It’s important for kids to understand how technology works so that they can use technology as a tool to benefit themselves and their communities.

We actively distribute thousands of free magazine subscriptions to individuals, schools, and groups who request our magazine. Paid subscription sales cover payroll and operations, including the online version of the magazine. However, we need your help to cover print and mail costs, the largest cost we face, to put a print magazine in the hands of our young readers.

What is beanz Magazine?

beanz magazine is published by Kids Code & Computer Science, Inc, a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to providing STEAM education to all kids ages 8-12+. Since 2013, we have published a general interest STEAM computing magazine to educate and inspire our young readers.

Our magazine has a wide range of kid-friendly topics, for example, 3D modeling software projects, electronics, coding, computer science, puzzles, concepts, history, profiles of people doing neat things with technology, math, and music. We also emphasize cultural and gender diversity. We want our readers to grow up curious about and appreciative of other cultures, as well as see people like themselves in our pages.

Our writers are STEAM classroom teachers, journalists, and technologists located in the US, Canada, UK, Netherlands, and Australia. Our subscribers are from all 50 US states, all Canadian provinces, and 26 other countries. Since 2013, we’ve published 69 issues, 52 in print, and 1200+ STEAM articles available online.

Most importantly, every copy of our magazine is addressed to one young person. It belongs to them. Unlike a STEM class or after school program, their copies of our magazine are available at anytime and anywhere for reading and exploration. Many articles don’t require internet access or computer. The magazine also helps them practice their reading, math, and logic skills. Parents tell us their kids grab the magazine when it arrives then flop on a sofa to read. Other parents sit down with their kids to work through the magazine and learn together.

We Need Your Help Today

We publish beanz six times a year, every even-numbered month. The cost to print and mail each issue is around $10,000 and includes the 700+ copies we donate. The problem? Magazine subscription sales from January through August are really slow, only enough to cover payroll and operations. We need help covering printing and mail costs for the first three issues we publish next year.

In 2024, we will donate over 6000+ copies of the 25,000 copies we plan to print in total for our print subscribers and donations. The average cost for us to print, mail, and donate one copy is about $6.00/copy. Donating that small amount, or donating enough to cover 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, or more copies will make a huge difference in the lives of these kids.

Your tax deductible donations, in any amount, will go directly to pay to print and mail copies which includes thousands of copies donated to Title 1 schools and through MagLiteracy.org to food banks, homeless shelters, and battered women’s shelters where kids show up.

The Impact

For me as publisher and founder, the best part of publishing our kids STEAM and computing magazine is working with kids, parents, relatives, teachers, and librarians. They tell us how our magazine makes a huge positive difference in their lives and the kids in their lives. Here are a few examples.

A Title 1 teacher wrote, on learning we would donate several dozen free copies for her students: “You have no idea how awesome this donation is and how much my kiddos are going to enjoy this! I teach STEAM to PK4-5th grade (about 765 students) and wanted something special for my older grades. This is going to be a valuable resource and fun teaching tool! Again, thanks so much!”

A young student sent us a photo of himself reading our magazine surrounded by a few of his lambs. He wrote: “I really enjoy reading beanz, especially coding and computer science concepts, and I always look forward to getting them. Apparently, so do my lambs!”

A parent wrote: “My son Wyatt is always thrilled to find his issue of beanz waiting for him in the mailbox. He looks forward to reading about the latest in technology and enjoys learning about how things work. He likes the articles on programming and the Tidbitz section the most.”

Your donation to help us print and mail copies to kids ages 8-12+ will make a huge difference in their lives. The more donations, the more copies we can print and donate to under resourced kids. All donations are tax deductible, too.

Thank you for reading this far. We hope you can contribute today and join us on this journey helping all kids understand and be inspired by science, technology, engineering, art, and math.

Tim

Tim Slavin

Executive Director

Kids Code & Computer Science, Inc.

Publisher and Founder

beanz Magazine

KidsCodeCS.org

KidsCodeCS.com