About Us

Our journey to this point has been six years in the making.  In April 2016, we hosted an Easter For Kids event at the Richland Center Community Center.  25 children attended!  In conversations with parents, we were repeatedly told “we need more things like this” and learned about the lack of resources for parents with young children.  This led us to looking for various ways we could reach out in our community and help fill this need.

 We launched a Mornings With Mommy program, a monthly event for moms with children ages 0-5.  We held an annual Early Childhood STEM Camp, for ages 2-4 & 5-7.  One of the best reviews we received was from a four-year-old, who was proud to tell her older siblings “This camp is just for me!”  She was always too young for the various summer camps her siblings were part of and she was excited to see this one was just for her!

 The more research we did and the more we interacted with parents, it became abundantly clear that the biggest resource needed was quality childcare.  Working parents were struggling to find a safe and high-quality place where their children could go.  COVID exacerbated those struggles.  During this time we learned about the “childcare desert.”  A childcare desert is defined as a zip code that has 3 times as many children as there are childcare slots available.  Richland County is at 20 times!  There are no full-time group childcare facilities in the entire county.

 It's during this time that we were able to purchase the former Rockbridge Elementary School.  We began plans to revitalize the facility into a full-time ministry center that will be called the ALL Center (Academy for Life-long Learning).  It was a facility designed for children—but needed renovations and updates that would allow the facility to serve younger children.  In the process we were able to develop a partnership with the Richland County Nutrition program.  For the past 15 years one of the rooms in the school had been used as a senior meal site three days a week, hosting 30 seniors each week.  When the building was put up for sale there was concern in the community if they were going to lose this program.  Instead we partnered with them and improved the space to make a welcoming and wonderful environment for social interaction and dining.  This January Bethlehem was recognized as Richland County’s Non-Profit Of The Year, and the first church to receive this award.

 And now the journey we started six years ago has led to the beginning of Bethlehem Lutheran Academy!  We are blessed to have a director who has 15 years of early childhood teaching experience, a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction, and was awarded the Kohl Teacher Fellowship Award in 2020 for innovation in the kindergarten classroom and was a Wisconsin Elementary Teacher Of The Year finalist.  The early childhood education we are planning to provide, along with an early childhood age-specific playground—there is nothing like it in the county! 

 It is our plan to provide a faith-based, foundational and intergenerational program that fills a vital need in our community, prepares children for school and fosters a love of reading, and lets the love of Jesus shine in all we do.