A small business grant aggregator with multiple programs running simultaneously. Black-owned, woman-owned, veteran-owned, BIPOC programs. Build the profile once, apply to many. Goldman Sachs alumni often qualify and win.
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Rent-A-Theme brings purposeful play to Colorado schools, senior communities, and corporate brands. We design and deliver mobile mini golf, life-size board games, life-size Lego challenges, Science FX stations, and intergenerational play days. Every experience is built so participants of every age and ability can engage. We are the only Colorado company combining accessible all-ages programming with corporate activation customization.
I founded Rent-A-Theme in 2009 after 17 years in education, including roles as enrichment director for Denver Public Schools and Cherry Creek. I started this business because I watched thousands of kids walk into school curious and walk out tired of being told no. Play is how kids learn. Play is how seniors stay sharp. Play is how families reconnect. Our company exists to give that spark a place to go.
We serve Colorado schools, senior living communities, and corporate clients including Toyota, Kaiser, and members of the Destination Colorado Meetings network. We are a Colorado DBE-certified, BIPOC-owned, woman-owned small business and a Goldman Sachs Black in Business alum.
We almost lost the company in 2020 when schools and senior communities closed. We owed $80,000 in back rent by December. We survived because we wrote grants and kept going. We are still here because the work is right and because the country needs more places where an 8-year-old and an 88-year-old can laugh together for an afternoon.
Our signature program, Grandfriends Play Days, is ready to scale. A class of 15 to 25 students visits a Colorado senior community for two hours of facilitated play. The program produces measurable outcomes that funders fund: senior isolation reduction, intergenerational connection, family engagement, cognitive activation. The U.S. Surgeon General named senior loneliness a public health crisis in 2023. We are the only Colorado company prepared to address it through play.
The challenge is the proof point. We have the equipment, the warehouse, the educator-founder, and 17 years of operations. What we do not yet have is a published case study, structured impact data, and a sponsor packet that closes corporate sponsors and senior living regional offices in days instead of months. The pilot Grandfriends Play Day produces all of those assets in one weekend.
The grant funding would unlock the pilot. The pilot unlocks the year. By month 12 we expect to have delivered 12 Grandfriends Play Days, signed three corporate sponsors on multi-event partnerships, secured six recurring senior living contracts, and produced the case study library that lets us apply to the largest intergenerational foundation grants in the country (Eisner, Generations United, AARP) in year two.
The funding would directly support the formal pilot of Grandfriends Play Days and the assets it produces. Specifically:
Every dollar produces a tangible asset (an event, a case study, a confirmed booking) that is repeatable and that compounds over the year.
Twelve Grandfriends Play Days delivered in year one across Colorado, with three corporate sponsors anchoring the program. Six senior living communities on annual contracts. A recurring school partnership pipeline. Twenty-four events in year two with expansion to all of the Front Range. A second team member managing events so I can focus on partnerships. Total revenue growth of Tonya provides projection over 24 months. And, most importantly, hundreds of Colorado seniors who laughed harder than they have in months and hundreds of students who learned that 88 years old does not mean done.
I spent 17 years inside Colorado schools before I founded this company. I have trained activity directors, run district enrichment programs, managed budgets through state funding cycles, and hired more event staff than I can count. I survived 2020 with $80,000 in back rent and no clients. I won a Goldman Sachs national grant the next year. I have raised two children, one of whom graduated from Cornell with a master's in electrical engineering. I have done the work. I have the certifications. I have the warehouse. And I have a daughter who once sat and looked at her grandmother in silence until I put a game between them. Then they laughed. That afternoon is why this business exists. I am the right person because I am the only person who would build this exactly this way.
Estimated time: 90 minutes for first profile, 15 minutes per subsequent program.
A 200-vote campaign is achievable in 7 days for Rent-A-Theme given the existing networks.
30 minutes on the calendar. We build the profile together, identify the programs currently open that match Rent-A-Theme, and submit the first one live.