Sophie Felts is raising funds to support MoCo 'learning hubs,' a pandemic necessity

Sophie Felts, a member of the Ruppert landscaping family, is leading a public-private effort to raise funds for "learning hubs" in Montgomery County — Rupport Cos. and the Rupport Family Foundation contributed $150,000 to the effort. She is the owner of Sophie Felts Floral Design, and a mother of four.

What is a learning hub? Learning hubs evolved in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. When public schools moved to a virtual only model, many parents who needed to return to work were left without the “childcare” component of school. Learning hubs are essentially a place where students can do their virtual classwork with supervision and guidance from dedicated staff. My energetic and innovative friend, Rory Richardson and her team at Bar-T Ranch (one of the largest before and after school childcare providers in Montgomery County) had an idea to solve this problem. Rory, her team, and a few others came together to create a consortium of childcare providers in the area.

They worked closely with the Greater Washington Community Foundation, school system, and County government to develop a program where parents can have a safe place for their children to distance learn while they work. Strict safety precautions such as temperature checks, masks, physical distancing, frequent sanitizing and limiting pods to 13 students or less — with each classroom having dedicated entrance/exits, helped to make this model scalable with less of a chance of spreading the virus. I have been working closely with the Children’s Opportunity Fund of the Greater Washington Community Foundation to raise money for learning hub scholarships to support low-income students or students in need.

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Source: Washington Business Journal