In April of this year, we pledged to donate 100,000 Pro memberships to workers affected by COVID-19 with the help of new Codecademy Pro members. For every new Pro membership purchase, we set aside five Pro memberships for workers displaced by the pandemic.
The response was overwhelming. Our community banded together to help us spread the word. Within a month and a half, thanks to the generosity of learners from around the world, we reached our goal. 100,000 Codecademy Pro memberships were set aside for furloughed, unemployed, and otherwise affected workers.
Stories from donation recipients
We believe that learning something new can provide a welcome distraction and sense of empowerment during this challenging time. We’ve been so inspired by messages from donation recipients who are taking this time to learn new skills and develop their careers.
Julian H., a learner in Australia, is looking at the pandemic as an opportunity for change. “Professionally, it has steered me away from my normal job (paid shutdown) and towards a career that I have been wanting to pursue for a while — programming.” Julian used his donated membership to prepare for a coding bootcamp and begin his journey towards becoming a full stack developer.
Clara M. in Argentina shared that she was using her donated account to “become more well-versed in Python and acquire technical skills that are essential in the tech-powered workforce.”
Jennifer O., a San Franciscan whose role was eliminated due to COVID-19, shared with us that she was taking the opportunity to learn to code in order to become a better marketer. “I’ve been in marketing my entire career and feel that coding skills will help me better understand how the companies I work for actually work, making me a better partner and informed decision maker.”
One donation recipient in the UK shared with us that they used their free membership to learn skills that landed them a new job:
“The membership has been so valuable in both maintaining a neutral level of mental health, and also in my job applications by giving me a daily focus outside of my daily job search.
“I heard two weeks ago that I have secured a new software engineering role at a gaming company. This would not have been possible without Codecademy. The programming tests were entirely based in Python and JavaScript — two languages I have only begun to learn since receiving the donated membership.”
Along with our donation recipients, we want to give a big thank you to all of the new Codecademy Pro members that helped make this possible. We can’t wait to hear — and share — more stories from our donation recipients.