Quick Links
Founded in 2023, DegenSTEAM is a regional initiative to strengthen STEAM opportunities hosted by Susquehanna Valley United Way and supported by The 1994 Charles B. Degenstein Foundation.
As Brie Apfielbaum Kula (Founder & Strategic Liaison to DegenSTEAM) shares: “DegenSTEAM’s vision, ‘Once Again Driven by STEAM,’ serves as Our North Star — a shared aspiration guiding efforts to strengthen opportunities across Our Learning, Our Workforce, and Our Community.”
DegenSTEAM recognized that meaningful collaboration required more than bringing people into the same room. It needed experiences where educators, employers, nonprofits, and community leaders could build trust, contribute their perspectives, and recognize how their individual strengths fit into a larger regional vision.
We partnered with DegenSTEAM to co-design and facilitate four gatherings across 2025 and 2026. DegenSTEAM guided the goals, content, and direction, while we contributed creative facilitation methods and participatory exercises that helped bring people into the process.
what we did
Co-designed and facilitated two Innovation Rooms in May and October 2025 to explore regional strengths, needs, and shared priorities.
Supported two Sense-Makers Gatherings in July and October 2026 to strengthen relationships, exchange resources, and identify opportunities for collaboration.
Used participatory exercises, storytelling, and creative reflection to encourage different perspectives, meaningful conversations, and active engagement.
Helped capture community insights to inform DegenSTEAM’s ongoing learning and program development.
how we did it
Starting with inquiry, not answers
The May 2025 Innovation Room invited community leaders to explore what was already happening across the region, where gaps existed, and what could be accomplished together that no single organization could achieve alone.
Building on those conversations, the October Innovation Room brought together community leaders to explore possibilities and identify shared priorities, including stronger education-industry connections, hands-on learning, and better access to existing resources.
These conversations helped DegenSTEAM and its community partners identify strategic activities that could move the region closer to the shared vision, “Once Again Driven by STEAM.”
From Innovation Rooms to Sense-Makers
As DegenSTEAM advanced its work, the questions evolved. Rather than focusing primarily on what the region needed, the gatherings began exploring who was doing what, who needed what, and how people could help one another succeed.
The July 2026 Sense-Makers Gathering invited community leaders to learn about DegenSTEAM’s progress, share experiences, and consider where their own strengths could contribute. Importantly, it welcomed the participants to recognize themselves as Sense-Makers — someone who not only helps make sense of what’s changing across learning, workforce, and community — but is also willing to help move meaningful work forward.
The October gathering continued that work through creative exercises and conversations about successes, challenges, and tools. One activity, Drawing Together, invited participants to communicate through simple symbols, interpret one another’s drawings, and discover how different perspectives can reveal new possibilities. One of the most encouraging shifts came when conversations moved from “We need this” to “We have that — let’s get together!”
Connecting conversation to action
The gatherings are part of a larger DegenSTEAM Learning Model designed to connect shared insights with opportunities for learning and action.
Through its emerging ‘What If Labs’ and ‘Solutions’ feedback loop, DegenSTEAM and its partners aim to explore needs, experiment with ideas, develop promising solutions, and use what they learn to inform what comes next.
Sense-Makers help keep this process connected to the community by sharing experiences, identifying opportunities, and contributing different perspectives. DegenSTEAM also plans to share harvested insights through The North Star dashboard, a dedicated space on its website where community learning and discoveries can remain visible and accessible beyond each gathering.
Throughout the engagement, our role has been to help create welcoming, intentional experiences where those perspectives can surface and meaningful connections can take shape. DegenSTEAM and its partners carry that learning forward through continued collaboration, program development, and experimentation.
The lesson: Meaningful collaboration isn’t about getting everyone to do the same thing. It’s about helping people recognize what they each bring to the table — and discovering what becomes possible when those strengths connect.
Community-guided strategic planning process in action
