ROCK HILL, S.C. (CN2 NEWS) The Academy of Young Scholars is a preschool that provides a creative learning experience right here in Rock Hill.
Like many small businesses they’ve been impacted by COVID-19 and have gotten assistance but it might not be enough.
Helen Barnes owns The Academy of Young Scholars in Rock Hill a unique preschool that encourages outdoor learning and embraces creative learning styles. She’s been operating for the last 3 years. Because of COVID-19 the school lost nearly 75% of it’s enrollments. Now, a lease that is nearly expired she’s facing the buying the building or being forced to close.
“We were sort of skating we were saving money, we put money aside, and we were just in a really good place. And so when COVID hit, the parents understandably very concerned about their children, wanting them to be safe, no one knowing what COVID it was going to do, we just… They kept him home. We lost a lot of income,” says Barnes.
Barnes says while local and federal loans helped the business to stay afloat, it wasn’t enough to recover what was being saved for the building purchase.
“We took a hit to the point where we had to go into our resources that we were saving because I knew we were going to purchase the building Before the year was out. We pretty much had to go through an exhaust a lot of our funding in order to stay afloat,” says Barnes. “Before the year was out. We pretty much had to go through an exhaust a lot of our funding in order to stay afloat.”
This Academy is looking for $250,000 that will help kids continue this unique educational experience and that coupled with the affordability and the type of care that they provide is some thing that parents say they want to see continued.
In the video above, CN2’s Rachel Richardson is talking with the academy’s leaders and concerned parents about the school’s impact on the community.
