SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — The Center for Education Reform (CER) and media partner Forbes announced the Discovery Center of Springfield as the winner of the $1 million STOP Award.  

The Discovery Center was one of five finalists selected from the 20 semifinalists to compete for the award.  

With the award the Discovery Center plans to develop open-book education software while expanding and continuing their mission of inspiring a lifelong love of learning through engaging hand on learning.  

“We are humbled and honored to represent Springfield and the great state of Missouri through the STOP Award and even more humbled to have been chosen as the grand prize winner. To think that the very best educational COVID response happened in Downtown Springfield proves that that anyone can use the resources they have to change the world or their community for the better,” said Rob Blevins, Executive Director. “Winning this award comes down to building and maintaining a great team. In fact, the very fact we found and applied for this award is because we managed to get Tyler Moles, our Development Director, over here from Big Brothers Big Sisters. He stumbled on this grant while he was working after hours. We do not ask people to work after hours, but we do have a whole team that doesn’t know how to stop serving kids, and that’s truly the heart of Team Incredibles. We want to thank the Center for Education Reform, Janine and Jeff Yass, and Forbes for all of the good they have done through the STOP Award and for recognizing the hard but beautiful thing we did right here in the Ozarks.” 

Click here to learn more about the STOP Award and the five finalists.