Adobe Stock / Stephen Coburn
Adobe Stock / Stephen Coburn

Two Pennsylvania summer camps, one in Philadelphia and the other in Lehigh Valley, are working to encourage girls to consider careers in the construction industry. The third annual Let's Build Construction Camp for Girls in Lehigh Valley, put on by the Easter Pennsylvania chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors, allowed campers to install flooring, put on drywall, and put in electrical fixtures among other tasks, the Lehigh Valley Business reports:

The free, weeklong camp serves to provide career info and hands-on training activities for girls 14 to 18 who have interest in construction, architecture, engineering and related fields. Each year, the program continues to grow.

Last year, 21 girls participated and this year the camp drew 27, including one student from Chesapeake, Virginia, and another from Wisconsin who ended up making the trip as part of a visit with family in the area.

This year’s event allowed the girls to work on teams of five to build and design part of a room, with the girls doing all the physical work. The program aims to give teen girls inspiration, courage and confidence in gaining new skills.

In the eastern part of the state, another summer program, the Mentoring Young Women in Construction (MYWIC) day camp in Philadelphia, had similar goals to the Lehigh Valley camp, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

Since 2009, women who are used to being in the minority at work have come together to show middle and high school-aged girls the possibilities of working the building trades: construction, carpentry, finishing, insulation installation, and more. The camp started with just a handful of girls. Ten years later, there are 26 enrolled, but it’s growing.

In partnership with Girls Inc., the free camp outfits each girl with a backpack filled with boots and socks, tools, and a journal. Each day, they travel to a different training center to get hands-on instruction from women in each industry. Monday, they learned about woodworking at a carpenter’s union; Tuesday, they painted, finished dry wall, and hung wallpaper during a demonstration on finishing trades. They learned about sprinkler fitting and insulation installation, and visited a laborer’s job site. Friday, the group toured the site of the future Penn Medicine Pavilion being built by PennFirst.

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