The Adventure Begins
After much prayer and consideration Amy and I left the security of our jobs teaching in the public schools to create a school where God was invited to be present, celebrate children and challenge them based on their individual capabilities, work with parents to provide a solid foundation for children, and give teachers the space to practice their profession with autonomy and support.
With the assistance of a full time volunteer, we served 19 students our first year meeting in the basement of a church. Because we served students who were slipping through the cracks, whether they understood concepts quickly and were bored in a traditional learning environment or needed extra support, more and more parents sought us out for their children. Enrollment increased.
By God’s grace and a great deal of commitment, prayer, and effort, we have grown to over 100 students from all walks of life and socioeconomic backgrounds. Thanks to the support of donors, children who could not attend due to financial restraints have experienced the Prodigy way of supporting learners optimally. Recently, Fred Burgard and Paul Cordes of Shadow Rest Ministries donated 30 acres of land complete with cabins just outside of Cape Girardeau. This beautiful property supports our vision of getting kids outside in God’s creation to learn. After 10 years of accessing a variety of shared space, we have our campus home and look forward to enhancing our beautiful, nature-rich environment as a premier school campus. Experiencing God’s call to live this spectacular and adventurous journey has been a truly humbling and exciting experience!
The story of our logo
After many years of growth we felt it was time to give our logo a new look that would more adequately show who we have become as a school. After much prayer, the Lord revealed the “aha moment” during our Spring Carnival when we saw an art project created by one of the PLA classes.
The Kandinsky-inspired, painted pieces of wood represented the Layers of Support that the founder, Russell Grammer, has often spoken of as a foundational piece of the school. Mr. Grammer always said that each child will have a better learning and life situation if he knows that God loves him and he is supported by family, friends, and mentors. Each concentric, colored circle represents a child who is living a fulfilled life. The circles that are enclosed within partial boundaries in the shape of trees indicate that the child is part of a thriving community. There are three of them to represent the Holy Trinity of the Christian faith – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
