‘A.I for Good’ attracts community kids to Hornsby Gateway Corps
- May 4
- 3 min read
BY LAUREN MARTIN
On Palm Sunday at Hornsby Gateway Corps, a vibrant cross-section of the community joined the congregation for the first time for a special ‘All-in-One’ gathering. This included the children and parents from the corps’ STEM program, alongside the UTS student volunteers who coached them in coding and A.I powered project-based learning.
Also joining them were the dedicated teachers and students from TAFE Hornsby – the behind-the-scenes heroes who have spent the past term preparing afternoon tea for the families each weekend.
It was a landmark day of celebration, bringing together all those who have made this innovative community initiative a success.
Captain Lydia Hong, Hornsby Gateway Corps Officer, said the idea of the after-school STEM club was to engage children and young people with the corps, which doesn’t have playgroup or music ministries.
She and a UNSW computer science graduate came up with the idea of teaching primary and middle school students the coding program ‘Scratch’ and the STEM club started in late 2024.
“It’s been well received by the community,” she said. The demand was high, but more volunteers were needed to expand, and due to the specific nature of expertise needed, volunteers were hard to find.
Then God intervened.
“I had the opportunity to speak on a panel at UTS [University of Technology Sydney] organised by AUS_LEAP… under a theme called ‘Thriving in the age of AI-volunteering as a gateway’,” Lydia said.
“It was an opportunity for networking and building leadership skills. We gave a 10-minute speech to 150 UTS students on the campus. I got to talk about what The Salvation Army Hornsby does, that we have a family store, we have social programs, and recently we started this kids’ coding club.
“I talked about the philosophy and the project-based learning and how we are now doing it in our community for lower socio-economic families. Some of the UTS students were interested, especially members of their Engineer Society, so they came and they said, ‘We are happy to volunteer.’”
With the extra volunteers on hand, and a ready-to-use curriculum from another non-for-profit tech-group, in 2026, Lydia and the STEM club leader, Sunny, launched an extra program on Sunday afternoons, focused on A.I powered projects.
“We called it ‘A.I for Good’ which is based on this very familiar term, ‘tech for good’ in the technology world,” Lydia said. “I thought that it was a good connection with the Salvos’ ‘Believe in Good’ [campaign].”
Each Sunday afternoon, the session started with those gathered learning about an A.I For Good project, such as ‘Affective Computing’ and ‘Ocean Cleanup’. “Then, we introduced Salvos’ ‘Believe in Good’ campaign and invited them to choose a project to help the local Salvos with, which, for the first cohort, was around the Hornsby Gateway Salvation Army Family Store,” said Lydia.
The students conducted a shopper survey and found that few younger shoppers were visiting the store, so the project focused on how to attract younger customers. The result was the launch of Hornsby Family Store Mascots, which were 3D printed, with each of the four mascots having their own unique name and backstory.
“The Mascots are called the ‘S Alliance’ and ‘S’ stands for Salvation,” said Lydia. At the end of the project, the group and their parents were invited to participate in Sunday worship at Hornsby Gateway Corps on Palm Sunday, to showcase their project and be celebrated.
The invitation to the Sunday meeting was just one faith pathway that Lydia and the team integrated into the STEM programs. Every Sunday, at the start of the ‘A.I for Good’ program, Lydia would showcase a Christian scientist.
“We call it the ‘Little Devotion’ at the beginning of each week,” she said. “We wanted to help them to understand that faith and science are not contradictory.”
In the lead-up to Easter, the mid-week Coding Club was asked to code an animation based on a part of the Bible story.
Lydia and the team are seeking God’s direction on where to take the groups in the future and how to strengthen connections with the parents of those who participate, many of whom stay throughout the class.
Please keep this new ministry at Hornsby Gateway Corps in your prayers, that the Holy Spirit would move powerfully to impact the lives of those who are becoming connected with the corps through this focus on technology and science.
