Hello.
There has been so much that has happened in Elevate’s short-history. I thought it was wise to share a concise version and continue to share as we evolve.
We opened in our home in February 2020 - right at the start of the pandemic. We preserved with our small group of students.
In September of 2020, we moved into the First Baptist Church and were able to slowly expand our care to 6 infants, 8 toddlers, 24 primary children, 2 fish and a bunny! Our amazing staff grew from just me to 10 caring and compassionate guides.
In summer of 2023, we had the opportunity to expand our program into the beautiful HRDC building! We decided to do this as it would help the school’s bottom line. However, this happened in at the same time that our family ran out of our savings account. Graham, our EC lead guide and my husband, decided to leave his position in order to make more money.
Our amazing community stepped up to ensure that he was able to stay in his position by raising over $30,000! Our family is incredible grateful for this gift.
However, the story isn’t over… we made a plea to our community to ensure that our staff is compensated for all the work that they do - as compassionate and knowledgable guides, janitors, cooks, nurses, and more! Even more gratitude as our families pay a variable amount based on what they can afford to ensure that we are able to care for their children and financially stay in Livingston, MT.
Our staff is being compensated, our community is working to create a sustainable solution for the school, we are expanding to support young children in Livingston. I wish that this brief history ended here…
But alas, as things were truly moving in a positive direction, the church that had been our home for the last three years has asked us to find a new home. We stopped our expansion plans in fear of enrolling children and having to say good-bye to them.
We think we have come up with a partial solution - moving our toddler program to the HRDC building. However, we feel passionately about keeping our infant program thriving.
So this is also a request for help - if anyone has a space of around 400 sq. ft., please reach out! We would love to find a solution that works to maintain respectful care for our youngest community members.
We appreciate all of your support over the last 3.5 years - we look forward to continue learning and growing with all of you!