Girls Build

Girls Build

About

Girls Build® teaches girls ages 8–15 real trades skills — carpentry, electrical, plumbing, welding, and more. Scholarships available. Celebrating 10 years! • Girls.Power.Tools. • This isn’t just camp. It’s an economic intervention. • 5000 • 1800+ • 220+ • <4% • Put a power tool in a girl’s hands. Watch what happens next. Girls Build® is a non-profit organization based in Portland, OR, inspiring curiosity and confidence in girls through the world of building. The problem is real. Women represent less than 4% of the U.S. construction trades workforce. Not because they lack ability — but because most girls are sorted away from these careers before they ever have a chance to try them. We intervene at the moment it matters most. Through hands-on summer camps and year-round workshops, we teach girls ages 8–15 carpentry, electrical, plumbing, roofing, welding, auto mechanics, and more — led entirely by women who do this work for a living. Our programming intentionally reaches those facing the greatest barriers: girls in foster care, girls of color, and girls from low-income households — those with the least exposure to trades education and the most to gain from career pathways that don’t require a four-year degree. Girls Build isn’t a carpentry class with an equity rider. It is a youth development organization whose curriculum happens to involve power tools — a model designed to change who enters the workforce. In 2025, Girls Build served 600+ girls across Oregon — most leaving with the skills and confidence to see themselves in the trades for the first time. By the time most girls are old enough to choose a career, the choosing is already done. A thousand small signals — who shows up in trade school brochures, who works the job sites, what subjects get steered toward girls and away from them — have already done their sorting. The result: by middle school, most girls have already absorbed the message that this work isn’t for them — not because of ability, but [Google Places type: child care agency]