Alright friends, it’s time to let you in on a little secret. For the last several months we’ve been dreaming and scheming… and we have started a business!
Lakeland, we are beyond thrilled to bring you WonderHere 🙂
WonderHere is a learn & play studio where children can learn through hands-on exploratory classes that focus on academic skills, as well as extracurricular afterschool classes with an emphasis on creativity. Freedom to play are at the core of our values, so we aim to provide a safe atmosphere for children to interact through Open Gym hours, Kids Night Out, and Birthday Party experiences.
There are so many questions we could answer in this blog post, like who? what? where? when? (questions you can certainly find all the answers to right here on our website, and you are always welcome to reach out to us!).
But right now, we want to focus on the question why?
Why is powerful. Why is what drives us.
We asked why when we no longer felt as if we were doing the greatest good in our careers.
We asked why when we realized that our calling would require more faith and movement than we knew we could handle.
We asked why when we saw the need for something like this in our community, but were only met with the lack thereof.
Then, we asked an even more powerful question than why…
Why not?
So, we combined forces, clung to the encouragement of our families, sought guidance from our Father, and told our boss we won’t be returning next school year.
Are we nervous? Sure! Who wouldn’t be? It’s not every day you decide to walk away from a steady paycheck to open a business. As teachers, we speak in the language of poster markers, story books, edible math activities, and sticky note stock piles. Now we are well-versed (or faking it until we make it) in topics such as liability insurance, LLC, tax ID, and fixed and variable budgets. But we believe in what we are doing. We are learning and we are enjoying the process. We are incredibly inspired by the community of risk-takers and go-getters we’re blessed to live among. They make chasing after your dream seem possible. Most importantly, God’s hand has truly been upon everything we’ve done and that is peace-that-passes-all-understanding goodness right there.
We are not leaving education. We are pioneering new educational venues for families to partner with us towards educating their children in a new way… perhaps in a better way. This education innovation will serve as a high-quality resource for families currently homeschooling, provide customized education and support for families exiting traditional school to begin a homeschool journey, and offer a one-of-a-kind “after-school” enrichment program for students in public/private school seeking more creative outlets such as cooking, art, STEM, or book club.
If you find yourself wanting to transition from why to why not, check us out at our First Friday booth on February 5th from 6-9 in Downtown Lakeland for more information. You can also visit our website www.wonderhere.com for updates (shout out to Grant & Marissa from Spark My Site who have been WAY more than site developers for us, by the way!). Soon we will be hosting free pop-up classes and family focus groups monthly so you can begin to envision how WonderHere can be a part of your family and meet the educational needs in your home.
Subscribe to our waiting list today! We would love to answer any questions you have over email or coffee so reach out to us! We hope to hear from you soon 🙂
