SALINA, Kan. — McPherson County Community Foundation (MCCF) has partnered with the Greater Salina Community Foundation to provide $50,000 of the $100,000 needed to help fund the STARBASE KS Salina location, which serves 14 counties including McPherson and Saline County. This support is the first step in ensuring that the program is able to continue operating in full capacity through the end of this year.
STARBASE KS, a Department of Defense STEM development program, faced significant funding cuts that forced the cancellation of its elementary school programming across the state.
Jim Ostlund, Director of Development with MCCF shared about the collaboration with Greater Salina Community Foundation and support of STARBASE Kansas.
STARBASE Salina Director Billie Jones was interviewed by MCCF and shared more about the program. Jones said Starbase is a Department of Defense youth STEM program that focuses on hands-on/minds-on education for students.
“We want to serve students and get them involved with things that they don’t normally see in the classroom,” Jones said.
That includes many things such as computer-aided design, robotics, rocketry, chemistry and more.
STARBASE Salina reaches out to 14 counties, within about an hour radius. Students are provided a 25-hour program.
Deputy Director of STARBASE Wichita Josh Hansen was also interviewed and shared a robotics lesson where STARBASE introduces what robots are and then begin using an education app and teach the kids about how you can program the robots to perform different actions through different movements, sounds and lights and just trying to excite kids about the engineering design process and introduce some technology that they may not have access to at their school.
Laura Miller, fifth grade teacher at Lincoln Elementary School in McPherson, shared that this is her second year bringing her fifth graders to STARBASE in Salina and said it’s an “amazing opportunity” for them.
Miller added that fifth grade is the first year that students have to take State Assessments in science so being able to bring them to STARBASE helps prepare and introduce them to science, technology, engineering, and other science categories than what the school can offer.
STARBASE also offers opportunities to manipulate molecules, play on iPads, do CAD drawing, robotics things that require extra technology, things that many schools cannot afford to provide.
“STARBASE has all those things and is able to provide them for multiple schools,” Miller said. “It’s also taught by highly trained science teachers and that’s huge.”
While she said elementary educators are a little bit trained in all the subject areas, having somebody specifically in the science field teaching and being full of excitement about the subject is a huge benefit.
“The one day STARBASE was able to come to us, they [the students] had so much fun,” Miller said. “It’s so Hands-On. They ask for more, they’re interested in more, they want to learn more. It just sparks their interest and their curiosity.”
Jones said that the five STARBASE sites in Kansas are federally funded, just like the 90 sites all over the United States. The employees in the state of Kansas went on unpaid leave as of Feb. 4, 2025.
“We kept five essential employees on through the state, so the directors were basically kept on to keep things up and running,” Jones said. “Normally we have two instructors in the classroom at a time and so today I was fortunate enough to actually have four out of my six staff members here. Three of those staff members are again on unpaid leave and so they are volunteering their time to be here because of their belief in what the program does for students in the state of Kansas.”
“It’s a gap that I don’t feel qualified to fill myself,” said Miller. “I don’t have the materials, I don’t have the knowledge. Without it, it’s hard to build the excitement that they get from having these added opportunities and so it’s a whole that’s hard to fill.”
If you would like to join MCCF in its mission to save STARBASE, you can contribute by giving a gift to the Foundation or by partnering with a local Community Foundation in your area.
