STEMS actively supports and nurtures women in business.
STEMS founder Cassie McGonagle watched her mother, co-founder Lisa Nickerson, make her way to the top throughout McGonagle’s childhood, and it had an impact. “I grew up attending a lot of events with my mom, and I saw and heard about different struggles in that arena,” McGonagle said.
She sees her current endeavors at STEMS as part of “teaching understanding of what exists in that realm and moving past that … thinking about how to move forward in a respectable way.” McGonagle also believes that there’s “a power within one’s self to be taken from that struggle” and, as part of STEMS’s core mission, that younger women can look up to older women in that sense and be inspired.
“I want to inspire and teach young women what they can do.”
— Cassie McGonagle
Here’s how:
- All STEMS tubers are bought from women-owned businesses.
- STEMS is actively involved in working with Girl Scouts in the Wayland area, helping them earn specific badges tailored to garden enterprises.
- All of the dahlias purchased this year were from women.
- In the works: the STEMS team is working with Wayland High School to implement a hands-on program run within the school. This is of a larger scale than before: last year, six young women at the high school were involved independently, and two the year before that. STEMS is now actively trying to implement the program within the school as part of the curriculum.
