Educators and business leaders all over the country are interested in getting more students to learn STEM skills - science, technology, engineering and math.
At Jefferson City's Boys and Girls Club, that's STEAM skills - the "A" stands for "art."
"We're talking about all kinds of arts," Project Coordinator Brian Valentine explained Saturday, "from music (and) instruments to canvas arts to culinary arts to graphic art design."
Family Advocate Joy Ledbetter told Saturday morning's meeting of a new advisory board that one of the after-school program's continuing activities will be "cooking."
She later explained: "Cooking is a big hit.
"You do math with cooking. You do science with cooking."
Also, students and guests alike enjoy consuming the final products of those sessions.
The Boys and Girls Club of the Capital City has been around since 1996, as an organization dedicated to providing after-school assistance to children - especially from low- and moderate-income, single-parent families - whose parents still are working when the school-day ends.
So its goal of helping children have fun and get help with things like homework isn't new.
However, the volunteer advisory board is new, since the organization recently won a $1.8 million "21st Century" federal grant over the next five years to help middle school students be more competent in those STEAM skills.
"It is to provide an arena for them to be exposed to other career possibilities," Valentine said. "We are definitely here to be an addition to - to be another arm and support to - what they're already doing (in school).
"And, also, to create opportunities to do some of the things they may not be able to (do in class)."
The after-school program runs from 3-7 p.m. Monday-Friday during the school year, at three locations - both the Lewis and Clark and Thomas Jefferson middle schools, and at the club's "Teen Center," 1306 Edmonds St.
On its website, bgcjc.publishpath.com/Default.aspx?shortcut=steam-program, the club promises: "While delving into the arts and athletics, we will be embarking on our very own journeys of self-discovery.
"We will also promote unity amongst each other through mathematics and exciting humanitarian service projects."
Ledbetter told the advisory board members - including parents and school officials - one program goal is to create "WOW moments," where students discover a new skill, get a new understanding of a concept or find a new friendship.
Although Jefferson City's Public Schools backed the club's application for the federal grant to the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), Ledbetter said the program isn't limited only to public school students.
"They are all invited, and we have definitely contacted and reached out to those folks," she said. "The Boys and Girls Club is open to everybody.
"The funding is the funding ... it simply funds the STEAM Program, the folks who work with the STEAM Program and, of course, the equipment that we're using."
The grant also has nothing to do with the Boys and Girls Club's plans to build a new center, after their previous building was acquired by the state Highways and Transportation department for the Lafayette Street/U.S. 50-63 interchange.
"We're still going to have the middle school locations" after the new center opens next year, or in 2017, on the Lincoln University campus, near the Wellness Center that LU and Jefferson City's Parks department have agreed to build together, Ledbetter said. "You're not going to see the program change."
Saturday's session was an introductory meeting for the advisory board, which will meet about four times each year at least through the five-year life of the grant.
Part of the board's job will be to help the Boys and Girls Club make sure it's using the grant money correctly and, Valentine said, to "give input and ideas and, also, to help us continue to spread the word and to share the mission and vision of what we're trying to accomplish."
The federal grant isn't renewable, so the Club also must find ways to make the STEAM Program "sustainable" after the grant money is gone - and Valentine expects the advisory board members can help develop some of those long-range plans, as well.
As for the program itself, Valentine hopes when the middle school students go to high school, the STEAM Program helped them "have a sense of self, that they had an opportunity to be exposed to some other arenas of life that, hopefully, ultimately will allow them to discover what their passion is and get plugged into that."