Jack Segil, 17, a student at Chadwick High School in Palos Verdes, enjoyed his time at Planet Bravo — a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics)-focused summer program — so much that he decided to help underprivileged kids get the same experience he did. This summer, his charity is sending 40 children to coding camps all over Los Angeles.
“It’s a great camp,” he said in a Zoom interview with The Journal. “My parents started sending me to this camp when I was 10 years old, and I fell in love with it and kept coming back each year. One day, I looked around and noticed that every single kid was from a wealthy family that could afford this expensive camp in Manhattan Beach.”
Segil started thinking about how other children, who weren’t as fortunate as he was, could also enjoy the same experience. So, he went home and presented the question to his parents.
“My parents always raised me with the importance of charity,” he said. “I went to Hebrew school, and there wasn’t a room without a charity box. I was always taught that it’s important to give back to the world, and that’s how we came up with the idea to create a charity.”
The first step was to fill out forms to set up a non-profit organization and get tax-exempt status, then wait patiently. It took a couple of years. After that was done, the more challenging task of raising funds began. The high school student was able to raise over $250,000 from corporate sponsors and individual donors who loved his idea. He called the charity “Code to Grow.”
The high school student was able to raise over $250,000 from corporate sponsors and individual donors who loved his idea.
In 2022, when the charity officially opened, Segil sent his first cohort of four kids to camp, the following year, he sent six kids, and this year, he sent 40 kids. The camp costs $1,100 per kid for two weeks.
“A lot of the funds came from our First Media grant that we got,” said Segil. “First Media is a social and advertising company that runs several high-profile Instagram accounts. They have this grant for STEM-related programs, much like what we are running, which we applied for and received $50,000 per year for three years.” Other donors, including The Motorola Solution Foundation, The Jewish Community Foundation and private donors and contributors, followed.
He then developed partnerships with Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters, Camp Bob Waldorf, CASA of LA, Happy Trails Camp and Culture Club. “There are a bunch of summer programs and DCFS [Department of Child and Family Services] offers all of them to social workers who, in turn, offer them to the kids,” said Segil. “They gave us a list and helped us reach out to many foster kids.”
The campers come from the foster system and from low-income homes. Each student attends two weeks of coding camp for free, receives lunch and rides to and from the camp and gets a chance to be a part of the year-long coding curriculum Segil developed.
“It’s designed to emulate how I learned to code,” he said. “It uses online resources and projects that I’ve made myself, twelve to be exact. They can do it on their own time, at their own pace, when they are not in camp. They meet with mentors once a week or every other week to help them overcome roadblocks. It teaches them all the fundamentals, and at the end, they can say, ‘I know coding.’”
Segil is now a counselor-in-training (CIT) and enjoys watching the children learn the basics of coding, and is thinking of becoming a teacher. It fills him with a great sense of accomplishment and pride when he sees how much other children enjoy coding.
“There was one kid, Shailoh, who came in with the first group of kids to Camp PlanetBravo. Before that, he was in another program where he did sports stuff. He is a very athletic guy, but when he came to our camp, he suddenly discovered computer science and found something else he loves. He is now working as a CIT and helps other children learn.” He then proudly spoke about another student who had been a problem student and hadn’t managed to complete a summer program without being kicked out. “But when he came to PlanetBravo, he enjoyed it so much, he finished it.”
Segil’s three younger brothers, Jonah, 15, Noah, 12 and Gabriel, 12 and his parents, Donne and James, also lend a hand. His father, who had immigrated to Los Angeles from South Africa in his youth, said the entire family helps prepare sandwiches for the campers. “It’s a whole family operation,” he said.
Jack credits his father for instilling in him the importance of giving back. He recalled how, as a young kid, his dad helped him and his brothers pack care packages for the homeless and then took them to Skid Row to hand them out. “My dad explained to us that many homeless people once had homes and families, some even had a college degree, but for some reason, they ended up on the street. He said that we, as a society, need to help them in any way we can,” said Jack.
Thanks to his extraordinary charity work, Jack was recognized this month by the mayor of Manhattan Beach, Joe Franklin, for his community service.
James, who takes an active part in the charity added, “Like most Jews who immigrated to the land of opportunities, I think that living here in the Diaspora, we are very blessed and lucky, but we have the obligation to help those who don’t have that much. The idea that this young man said, ‘I feel there is inequality, and I want to give,’ is a really important skill to have. I’m really proud of him.”
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