The team at this respected community institution that provided educational activities for students voted to stay open to fill a huge gap that existed in this Ozark community during Covid. Discovery went to work in 48 hours transitioning their 60,000 square foot building into a massive community response center taking care of children of essential workers, delivering over 200,000 hours of child care, 50,000 free meals and on top of that, opened a school. With pods of just ten students, the Discovery school offers a project-based, experiential and hands-on learning environment that parents believe is helping their children to love learning again.

Once these services were set up, the team at Discovery realized the need and demand for transformational and outstanding education. Its leaders didn’t ask for permission or regulatory changes to expand into the former Everest College to set up educational programming through its community. While the traditional system floundered, the community embraced Discovery’s new course.

With the grand prize, Discovery will expand the school which currently operates privately, and become self-sustaining over time. They plan to develop a new app to help parents with students in any school in the state to customize learning. And this science center will take its work to 27 rural counties, 30 states and 3 countries, to help guide thousands more organizations to create these kinds of innovative learning programs, too.