49ers SLI Student's Program 'Notes for Support' Sweeps the Nation

[Sourdough Sam]

As a member of 49ers SLI, Gina will have completed 300 extra hours of STEM learning, on top of her normal classwork, by the time she graduates next May. SLI students take math and science courses that blend project-based experiential learning with real-world concepts. It was through these courses that Gina was first introduced to coding. She immediately fell in love with it and began to take classes on her own time and watch YouTube videos to keep her skills sharp. She is even the head of her coding club at Santa Clara High School. A complementary aspect of the 49ers-funded STEM curriculum at the junior and senior level is focused on philanthropic giving. Because of her coding skills, Gina combined what she knew about coding and building websites to achieve the "how" of bringing her idea to life. That idea is now known as "Notes for Support".


For many high schoolers creating and writing code for a website is an achievement in and of itself, but Gina took her website one step further, submitting it to an international competition put on by the World Health Organization called COVID-19 Global Hackathon. The Hackathon was an opportunity for developers to build software solutions that drive social impact, with the aim of tackling some of the challenges related to the current coronavirus pandemic. A total of 18,932 individuals from over 175 countries submitted projects to the Hackathon and "Notes for Support" was one of 89 projects recognized by the World Health Organization. If that's not impressive enough, she was the only high school student chosen.


Following the Hackathon, companies like Facebook and Giphy reached out to Gina asking how their companies could get involved. Since Gina is a member of the 49ers SLI program, the 49ers organization got word of Gina's project and asked how they could help. "I just want to send as many notes to as many people as possible," Gina said. The 49ers shared Gina's website with its 2.1 million followers on Twitter and 3.8 million on Facebook. 49ers tackle Mike McGlinchey even recorded a video message thanking all those on the frontlines and included Gina's website in the caption, which the 49ers shared across all social platforms.