Last week San Francisco hosted WWDC, AltConf and the inaugural Layers conference. Through the generosity of some of our members, Layers was able to award two scholarship tickets.

Saturday morning, I awoke to the following email:

Dear Seattle Xcoders, 

THANK YOU so much for making my dream of attending the Layers conference in San Francisco come true. It was an amazing experience and has cemented and inspired my path towards learning how to code and to becoming a designer. 

After graduating I was really lost and struggling to find something that really piqued my interest - and was a sustainable career - after attending the workshop, I now know that I can (and will) make the effort to learn how to code for my own future. 

Thank you so much for making it possible. 

Here’s the part of this I can’t get over: This was not actually an official “Xcoders” project. I wasn’t personally able to contribute to the scholarship at the time, although I witnessed it unfold: In the course of just an hour, one Xcoders member sent out the proposal and others chimed in almost immediately with contributions. Before we knew it, we were over the goal of one ticket and almost to a second. Someone committed to the balance and the round was done, just like that.

The organization didn’t raise this money, the community did it. This in turn enabled Jessie Char and Elaine Pow to welcome and influence two people who otherwise wouldn’t have attended.

I love this community.