Rise High at the Mohonasen Center for Advanced Technology received a donation from IGT of $24,000 worth of computers to help students in the classroom working in STEM.

Rise High is a Saturday learning program where kids mostly in Schenectady get to spend the day engaging with professionals in STEM learning about careers and helping them find a path for the future.

The program has about 100 7th through 12th graders in their facility and donations like the one they received from it will help them learn more about the STEM industry.

"To make sure that we have computing needs in our classes like we do additive design, we do coding classes. We do different modeling classes, data analysis, and things so they need computers to be researching on the outside and doing actual technical work in the classroom," saidGretchen Bellinger Rise, high executive director

"Workforce development is key for the success of this region in the country is a hole so we wanna make sure that we've got the workforce that has the skill set to meet the needs of emerging businesses in existing companies," Gary McCarthy Schenectady mayor

Rise High plans on adding 20 6th graders to the program this coming January and hopes to expand it more in the future.