The Kenai City Council decided to offer $100,000 in CARES Act funds to the Challenger Learning Center, following the suffering they have encountered due to the COVID-19 public health emergency. It aims to fund their increased ability to operate, citing an increased need of their services. The decision was made during the November 4 meeting of the Kenai City Council.
Marnie Olcott, of the Challenger Learning Center, discussed how the pandemic has impacted their operation: “The Challenger Learning Center is a hands-on STEM education center that services students from around the state – not just here on the Kenai Peninsula. Traditionally, we have students from across the state that come into the Center and they spend one, may two nights doing educational programs. Anything from simulated space missions to classes in rocketry. Not only do we service the school populations, but we also service other organizations, such as the Girl Scouts, the Boy Scouts, Air Patrol. When COVID hit, it completely cut us off at the knees. We lost every ounce of revenue that we had coming in because our programs are in-person, hands-on, and it completely cut us out.”
She added: “When we were able to get the PPP loan, we immediately put our staff back to work in creating virtual programs that we could push out. There are lots of virtual programs out there. We wanted to make sure that we maintained the quality and the integrity of the Challenger Learning Center model, which is that teamwork component, the communication component, and in addition to that, the hands-on component.”
The Council roundly thanked Ms. Olcott for the educational services of the Challenger Learning Center, with all Councilmembers touting the value provided to the City of Kenai.
Tim Dillon, Vice-President of the Board of Directors for the Challenger Learning Center, also testified that he has seen, first-hand, the struggle the Center has had in funding their virtual STEM programs.
The aim of the Challenger Learning Center is to fill the gap created when local schools close to in-student learning. Their request included operational costs of $30,000 per month for the months of October through December, and additionally, $10,000 for materials and shipping.
Resolution 2020-88 was passed unanimously.
Anyone interested in contributing or seeing what programs are being featured at the Challenger Center are invited to visit them online at AKChallenger.org.
