When I took over SSE, it was a well-loved but outdated event. Attendance had plateaued at around 1,500 elementary school kids each year, and the experience felt uneven — a handful of high-traffic stations like slime drew long lines, while others sat mostly empty. The event lacked structure, and kids weren’t engaging with all the science content on offer.

I spent eight months reimagining the entire program from the ground up. My goal was to modernize the experience, make it more engaging, and expand our capacity to handle twice as many students. One of the biggest shifts was introducing a goodie bag system: every child received an empty bag at the start of the event with the expectation that, by the end, it would be filled with science-themed takeaways. This simple change gave structure and excitement to the event — kids had a reason to visit every station, and each experience offered something memorable to take home, like hand-made harmonicas, fizzy bath bombs, or classic slime.

Behind the scenes, I led a team of 10 to manage logistics, develop new experiments, and train volunteers. Funding had always been a constraint, so I raised $30,000 in just three days to support the expanded experience and increase the quality of materials across the board. By showtime, we had grown SSE into a 30+ station event spanning biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, and environmental science — all adapted for a K–2 audience.

The results were beyond what we imagined. We doubled attendance to over 3,000 kids, doubled our student volunteer base, and filled our classroom registration slots within minutes of opening. Teachers raved about the format, parents loved the take-home engagement, and kids sent in thank-you notes calling it “the best day of their lives.” Years later, some of those same students would tell us SSE was why they decided to pursue science in high school.