An interview with Elise ‘Leesy’ Schweich, who founded the
Springboard to Learning more than 40 years ago.

By Deb Peterson of the St. Louis Post Dispatch

What was your inspiration for starting Springboard to Learning?

I had the good fortune to do a lot of traveling with my husband, who was a businessman. Among some of the things I got to do was to ride camels in Egypt, climb the Acropolis in Athens, watch shadow puppet shows in Bali and fish for marlin off the Florida Keys. I would bring back objects from my trips for my grandchildren to see and I realized that other children might enjoy seeing them, too. I wanted to bring the outside world to kids in classrooms who might not get to see it otherwise.

Did you start out in the schools?

Yes, and we’ve stayed there, too. I answered a call for teachers’ aides from the St. Louis Public Schools in the early 1960s and I went to work at Ford Elementary School. Funding for aides ran out in 1965, and that’s when I formed Springboard. I was the first teacher, the first development person and the first president. I was a real one-man band for a long time.

How did the organization grow?

In 1981, we hired our first paid office staff, Jean Roth, who became our second executive director (after Schweich). We hired our second teaching staff supervisor in 1983 (Anne-Marie Prophete), and our second president (Helen Shopmaker) joined the organization in 1984.

How many children have been served by Springboard, and how many teachers does the organization have now?

More than 600,000 children and about 60 teachers. We provide 177 programs to more than 75,000 students every year.