Introducing Girls Garage

West Berkeley’s Girls Garage is a dream come true for girls who want to fuse metal and make something new. Fearless builder girls can come together for after-school lessons in welding or weekend workshops in screen printing.

While the facility is new, the program has been underway for four years now as part of the non-profit, Project H Design.

Walking up to the front door feels like you’ve arrived at a very special place. 3600 square feet of space opens up further with high ceilings and lots of possibilities. The space includes a woodshop, metalshop, digital fabrication studio, and large classroom. They also offer laser-etching and bike repair workshops.

What goes on at Girls Garage

After-school, over the summer, or on weekends, girls can work towards their 10-module Fearless Builder Girl certification and earn skill badges along the way.

After-school classes

Sold in 8-week blocks with different topics based on each day of the week, these 90-minute classes give real hands-on experience designing and building. For Winter 2017 — currently selling now — classes include soldering, physical computing, and power tools. Those are for girls only.

Workshops

For aspiring tinkerers of all genders and experience levels, Girls Garage hosts workshops on evenings and weekends. Saturday public workshops are a great way to try out Girls Garage programming as an adult, child, parent, or family. Upcoming topics include lock picking, jewelry making, welding, carpentry, skateboarding (design and build your own board, and then practice riding it!), screen-printing, and more.

Plan your visit to Girls Garage

Visit the website to find out which class, workshop, camp, or activity suits your family best.

Located at 1380 10th Street in Berkeley (behind REI). Fees vary.

I’ve already chosen a few workshops I want to try. Visit them on Facebook to see more. To see the garage in action, check them out on Instagram, too.

[All photos by Heather Flett; all rights reserved]