Adventure Academy has been a part of the Wagner community since the fall of 2021. With a growing demand for daycare in Wagner, Adventure Academy outgrew its original location. Looking to expand and find a new space that would allow the daycare the ability to be better set up for the needs of the kids, Adventure Academy found that location in the former Apparel WorX building. The daycare officially moved into its new main street location on October 7.

The mission of Adventure Academy is to provide educational material and care to the children of the community in order to allow individuals and parents to be gainfully employed. As the daycare is a non-profit, it is governed by the Adventure Academy Corporation Board that includes Bernie Koupal, President; Rhonda Mathis, Vice-President; Alexa Wunder, Treasurer; Kayla Krcil, Cassie Beeson, Brenda Jaton, and Darby Krug. The director of the day-to-day operations at Adventure Academy is Annessa Bruguier who has a lot of experience in the daycare field.

In April of 2024, people involved with the daycare and its impact on the community began talking about the need to expand and find a new location. Six months later, that talk became a reality with the current building being bought and renovated which only took about three months from start to finish. In order for the daycare to have the ability to expand and move, a group of investors came together to purchase the building and pay for the upgrades/renovations. The investors are allowing Adventure Academy to repay them with an interest free loan. The investors could see the need there was for a bigger daycare facility in Wagner in order to better serve the needs of residents and businesses in the community and wanted to see that happen in a timely manner.

In addition to the group of investors, ROCS and Adventure Academy have formed a partnership that began in early 2024. They became partners in order to be better able to support Adventure Academy’s employees with payroll and benefits. This partnership also allows for ROCS to help with repairs, transportation, and weatherization, as well as grants the daycare access to ROCS resources (such as grants, special topic conventions, online certifications, etc.) in order to better stabilize the work force for the daycare. The partnership has also allowed Adventure Academy to have the use of the Lillio App. This is a valuable tool that allows parents to sign their children in and out of the daycare, allows for quick communication between parents and staff, as well as the ability to send daily updates, pictures, etc. Kaylene Goehring and Kelsey Shaffer have been the ROCS members that have been invaluable to the collaboration between Adventure Academy and ROCS.

Adventure Academy in its new location can now have up to 60 children (15 babies, 15 toddlers and 30 pre-k) on site, with their current enrollment at 28 children. There are nine staff members, but as enrollment numbers increase the number of staff members needed will also increase. One of the unique aspects of Adventure Academy is that they do not take children over the age of six years old. The daycare currently offers three different age divisions including the baby room (newborns to 12 months); toddlers (one- and two-year-olds); and preschool (age three to six years of age). Eventually the daycare would like to be able to expand their services to include kindergartners, which would offer after-school care/activities until a child is eligible to attend the Wagner Boys and Girls Club after-school program starting in first grade.

Some of the programming that is offered by Adventure Academy includes circle time and center time (which focuses on educating children in preparation for school both socially and academically). Every single toy in the daycare was chosen because of its educational purpose. Another great feature that the daycare offers is that there is a kitchen on site where meals are prepared for the children daily. This is another area where the ROCS partnership comes into play with the organizations working together to meal plan healthy meals for the children. The renovations that had to be done before the daycare could move into its new location included finishing the building of walls, bathrooms, creating rooms, creating a safe drop zone in the parking lot, and creating an outdoor recreation area with playground equipment. As the staff and children get more acquainted with the new current location, the staff plan to implement new activities. Director Bruguier’s goal for the academy is to offer more activities which would include different and varied learning centers, have a set schedule especially for the preschoolers as well as would like to look into more grants in order to fund more fun and educational toys such as water mats, games, etc. for Adventure Academy.

Adventure Academy is planning to have an open house with a time and date to be determined.