summer-camps
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Young Life Built a Global Youth Network by Showing Up Before Preaching
The 85-year-old ministry does not wait for teenagers to walk into church. It trains adults to enter their world - at games, on campuses, in clubs and at camp - and turns patient friendship into a worldwide operating model.
ActivityHero
ActivityHero is a Palo Alto-based online marketplace and software platform that helps parents find, compare, and book summer camps, after-school classes, and enrichment activities for their kids - in-person, online, or on-demand. Founded in 2012 by engineers-turned-mothers Peggy Chang and Shilpa Dalmia, it also provides registration, marketing, and management software to the camps, studios, and school districts that run those programs, connecting millions of families with tens of thousands of activity providers.
Homeroom
Homeroom is a San Francisco software company that runs the back office for school auxiliary programs - after-school enrichment classes, extended care, summer camps, leagues and tutoring. Founded by Stanford classmates Casandra Espinoza Stewart and Christina Walker, it started as a three-sided marketplace connecting parents, schools and class vendors, then grew into an all-in-one platform handling registration, rosters, attendance check-in/out, contractor payments, compliance and financial reporting. It raised $3.5M in seed funding led by Forerunner Ventures in 2019 to chase a roughly $23 billion U.S. after-school market where more than 40% of children are not enrolled in any program.
Casandra Stewart
Casandra Espinoza Stewart is the CEO and co-founder of Homeroom, a San Francisco software platform that brings the messy, paper-bound world of after-school enrichment, summer camps and extended care online. A Stanford public-policy grad and former Greylock Partners analyst, she traded venture capital for venture building, teaming up with former teacher Christina Walker to give PTAs, parents and class vendors one place to schedule, book and get paid. Homeroom hit a $1M GMV run rate in month one and raised $3.5M in seed funding led by Forerunner Ventures in 2019.
Peggy Chang
Peggy Chang is the co-founder and CEO of ActivityHero, the online marketplace where parents discover, compare and book summer camps, after-school classes and workshops for their kids. An MIT-trained engineer with a Stanford MBA, she spent more than 15 years building consumer software at Intuit's QuickBooks, Charles Schwab, Excite@Home, the Los Angeles Times new-media division and Walt Disney Imagineering before turning a personal frustration - it took her three months to enroll her daughter in gymnastics - into a company. Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Palo Alto, ActivityHero now connects more than 4 million families with over 10,000 activity providers, and Chang frames its mission as both helping kids find their passions faster and helping parents (often mothers) stay in the workforce.