Whew! 2020 you stretched us, challenged us, motivated us, and inspired us to reimagine what equity in education and health needed to look like, sound like, feel like, behave like, and most importantly never again be like. 

While we now know the importance of hugging our loved ones tighter, remembering to say I love you, and make those phone calls when people cross our minds because in a blink of an eye they could be gone, we also know what it is to band together, uplift each other, give voice to the voiceless, and finally speak truth to the gaps we've all known to be there for historically underserved communities, essential workers, and citizens left dangling in the gaps of our society.

But in all the ways we could easily exchange stories of the unwelcomed things that came with 2020 like senseless killings of unarmed black and brown people, I have to admit that I remain increasingly hopeful of a pathway forward where we can all live united, free to be unconditionally loved, honored, protected, respected, and heard. Not only because hope serves as one of the many building blocks of the foundation that undergirds our mission here at Metamorphasis Powerhouse Company,  but because the strength, resilience, compassion, and leadership of our students, our team, and our partners is something that we can continue to find hope in. It is with hope that we dug in, thought big, and transformed what our programs could be, how we could still serve, where we could still operate- dismantling silos and using collaboration as a tool to forge forward.

In 2020, hope and transformation came in many different forms that led us to pivot successfully despite a raging global pandemic:

• In Mid-March when the world shut down, hope was the catalyst that calmed our fears and helped us pivot in innovative strategic ways by partnering with Active Network to build our virtual learning lab so we could turn everyday places like living rooms and kitchens into spaces that inspired giggles, inventions and ah-ha moments.
• In May when we were forced to cancel our largest annual community STEM event of the year with Microsoft at Lenox Square Mall, hope was the balm that healed our anxieties and challenged us to seek out virtual opportunities to still reach, teach and inspire so that students, parents and educators would still know that #WITHSTEMUCAN change the world.
• By June when summer camps were closed, hope is what inspired us to curate popup storytimes with volunteer readers, engage students with gamification using Kahoot, expand our Google Classroom partnerships and script talking robots that made learning math cool, and forever changed our approach with Artificial Intelligence software.
• In August as schools were gripped with uncertainty, hope is what guided us to create our Partnerships In Education program to help certify teachers with digital tools so they could confidently embrace technology, apps, and curriculum templates for the upcoming school year.
• By October, as the pandemic still raged on, hope is what pushed our Volunteer Coordinator to band together with an entire sewing community to crank out more than 1200 reusable masks that we distributed to at-risk senior citizens living across 20 Georgia counties in preparation for a second wave of coronavirus and the flu season.
• And as the year came to a close through the holidays, hope was what reminded us that innocent children and well meaning parents didn't deserve to miss out on Santa just because money was tight. So we partnered with Five Below to take 5 different school classrooms of children on a shopping spree to ensure they still remembered how it felt for someone to say YES this year. 

And as we reflect on all the ways we showed up for the community, whether for students, parents or senior citizens that needed our help, it is hope that prepares us for the new challenges that await us to continue this important work. We are so extremely grateful for our 2020 "grow up" year, we are thankful to our amazing partners, sponsors and leadership team for helping ensure we are still a viable resource ready and able to stand in the gap in such a monumental time. 

With over 750+ students, parents and senior citizens reached across 20+ counties, expansion of programs successfully executed through virtual platforms, with an additional 18 new partners and more than $30,000 in funding to aid in teacher and student scholarships, essential hygeine kits, reusable mask giveaways, parent workshops, we have triped our year over year impact for at-risk adults, while pivoting the way we serve the community to include a virtual platform that now reaches a significant amount of more students that reside outside of our traditional 13 county footprint.

Thank you for helping in the journey as we continue to transform what equity in education and health looks like and can become. With your continued support we can fuel hope into action to overcome the challenges, and seek out new solutions so more communities can thrive.

In this annual report I'm excited to share more of our accomplishments this year, while highlighting our partners, giving much deserved recognition to our volunteers, and thank our amazing sponsors and donors.

As we look forever forward, I also excitedly share our vision for the future- where everyone has a voice, everyone counts, and everyone gets to learn and grow to be their best selves.