by Rick G

How a bunch of strangers in Fresno found a venue, threw coding events, and got developer jobs

One year ago, I moved back from South Korea. I was living on my savings from a couple teaching gigs, not quite sure what to do next.

Then my friend Thomas Klein reached out to me. He invited me to help him revive Fresno’s Free Code Camp Fresno chapter.

I’d run a local tech community before, and I knew it was a lot of work. Especially if you do it all on your own. But it’s also a lot of fun. So I told Tom that if he and I could do it as a team, I’d be happy to do it all again.

As much as I love coding on my own, I’ve always enjoyed coding in groups even more. Back in Korea, I started my own coding meetup. But all of this happened before Free Code Camp came on the scene.

You can imagine how jealous I was when I found out about the new Free Code Camp chapter in Busan right before my flight back to the states. To my surprise, it was led by my old professor from Daegu, Stephen Mayeux.

I was able to study a lot of Stephen’s strategies and and apply them toward the newly-revived Fresno chapter.

Finding an awesome venue

That day we took over a hashtag

I reached out to Talisha, the event coordinator at Bitwise, which is the “mothership of technological education, collaboration and innovation for Fresno.” She mentioned that she was looking for something different from the other events hosted there, and was excited about our Free Code Camp chapter.

Together, we decided to organize a pair programming session every first Saturday of the month. On the third Saturday, the event was more of a coffee-and-code affair that would gradually turn into a dynamic code lap session.

I’ll never forget the moment that Thomas and I looked over at each other and smiled as the dialog in the room grew louder and louder with people sharing their love of code.

Accomplishments from our first year

Our first meetup was at the Bitwise’s previous building.

Our code camp strives to create an open environment where everyone can congregate and grow together.

In the past year, we’ve:

hosted a whiteboard coding challenge meetup

sponsored and conducted a code lab at the 2015 Women’s Tech Maker’s International Women’s Celebration

held a variety of discussions on our experiences of getting jobs in tech

organized algorithm classes in Bakersfield and Fresno

hosted the Google Maps API codelab at the 2016 ValleyDevFest, then created a full-fledged app from the prototype we built there

A photo from our whiteboard coding meetup in May 2016

Along the way, we’ve helped people:

get jobs in tech

earn scholarships for coding bootcamps

drastically improve their coding skills

earn Free Code Camp certificates

gain confidence and become leaders within our community

and eat a ton of pizza! (A big thanks to Michael Chrisco, who’s been a member since the beginning)

Jaime J. Rios’ scholarship talk

The future is bright in sunny Fresno

I’ve watched so many people grow and change this year, both personally and professionally.

I’m so proud to be part of a group that is so passionate about helping us build one another up. Everyone’s cooperating to improve the tech community here in the Central Valley.

My experience with this group has even inspired me to apply for nonprofit status for an organization that helps aspiring professionals get experience in the tech industry through both volunteer and paid projects. Message me on Twitter if you’re interested in participating.

I’d like to thank all of our members for making the past year such an awesome one for Free Code Camp Fresno.

I’m utterly overwhelmed by everyone’s outpour of genuine kindness. So many people have stepped forward to offer their time and share knowledge among our tribe. So many people have worked hard to empower themselves with code — many of whom now have jobs as developers!

I’m really proud that we’ve built and nurtured something like this in Fresno, and that it’s continuing to grow. I’m loving every minute of this.

In the year to come, we’ll continue grow our community through new projects and events — maybe even a hackathon! So if you’re anywhere near Fresno, you should join us.