One of the things that makes Creative Innovators Project unique is that growth doesn't stop with the students. Families grow together. Parents become mentors, coaches, and lifelong friends, discovering and rediscovering gifts they never expected to share.

Devon's story is a wonderful example of that journey. Her passion for helping children learn, connect, and discover their own potential has become a tremendous gift to our community.

Every family writes a different story at Creative Innovators. This is Devon's.

My Journey to Creative Innovators

By Devon — Primary & Division I Leader and Coach, Creative Innovators Project

When I became a teacher, I felt pulled toward the students who learned differently, the kids who didn't fit the mold of public education. My classroom experience spans elementary-age children with learning disabilities, social and emotional challenges, and severe medical diagnoses. Different kids, different stories, but they taught me the same thing again and again: all kids want to learn. Some just need learning to connect to their lives before it becomes meaningful.

*Creative Innovators Project is stronger because of Devon's unwavering belief in children's creativity, curiosity, and potential. It's a gift she shares with every student she coaches.*

The curriculum I was handed in the classroom was my starting point. My students needed supplemental material; lessons rebuilt around their interests, their abilities, their questions, and their lives, before the required content could land. The more time I spent reworking lessons that way, the more I noticed something about myself: this is how I learn, too. It's how I've always learned, and it's how I actually enjoy learning. My students were no different.

*Devon and her oldest daughter, Rory, at Odyssey of the Mind Regional Competition*

When I became pregnant with my first daughter, I was grateful to be able to stay home with her. I was also, honestly, burned out. From teaching, and from carrying the work of creating those connections for my students on top of everything else the curriculum required. But my passion for connection didn't go anywhere. I put it into hands-on experiences for my daughters and their cousins: building things, exploring, asking questions, and following whatever they were curious about.

*Devon brings the same passion for hands-on, curiosity-driven learning that shaped her classroom—and her home—to every CIP practice.*

By the time my oldest started kindergarten, I already knew she needed more ways to fuel her learning than a school day could offer. A friend introduced me to a program at our school called the Creative Innovators Project, a nonprofit whose teams compete in Odyssey of the Mind — a creative problem-solving competition where kids do one hundred percent of the thinking. My daughter was in second grade and, I was fully submerged. I became her team's coach, and today I serve as CIP's Primary and Division I leader.

*What started as coaching her daughter's team grew into leading Creative Innovators' Primary and Division I programs.*

Here's how I teach at CIP: I don't give answers. Coaches in our program ask questions — What are you noticing? How can you test that? What can you try next? — and then we get out of the way. The kids own the problem and the solution. My lesson planning looks a lot like it did in my classroom days: I start with a connection to the kids' real lives, wrap it in an open-ended challenge within limits, put materials on the table, and let them design/create/build. Then they test what they made, and their ideas fail.

*Rather than giving students solutions, Devon creates the conditions where they can discover them for themselves.*

That failure is where I've seen kids grow the most. When an idea doesn't work, the important part isn't the flop — it's helping them see that failing is okay, and asking what they learned from it and what they'll try next.

*Innovation isn't something we teach from the sidelines. We build, test, fail, and learn together.*

Kids will stick with that hard work when the problem matters to them. When a challenge connects to their own lives and experiences, they don't quit when it gets difficult — they keep going. That's how we teach problem solving at CIP.

*Devon has a gift for knowing when to step in with encouragement and when to step back, allowing students the space to discover solutions for themselves.*

CIP has done the same thing for my own kids. My oldest is nine. She loves school and does well there, but what she's really drawn to is the people, her peers and her teachers. She needed a less structured place to connect with them, and that's what CIP gives her. Being part of a team has built her confidence in how she expresses herself and how she connects with the other kids.

*With Devon nearby to encourage rather than take over, Reese experiences what every child deserves: the opportunity to try, to struggle, and to discover she can do hard things.*

My youngest is five and is growing up in our Primary program, where nothing is scored. It's all about her curiosity. She gets handed new materials and asked what she could do with them, and she's learning how to work on a team and how to voice her own ideas.

For me, this isn't a job — I'm a volunteer. I give my time to it because of what I've watched CIP do for my own two daughters and the kids on their teams.

Finding a Place We All Belonged: My Journey to Creative Innovators

One Opportunity at a Time: It Was Never About Starting a Nonprofit

Creative Innovators Project