ExclusiveWhat Happens When a City Is Built Just for Kids? | Sandy Stone

Our guest today is Sandy Stone, who started her career at the age of 13 as a clerk in a law firm and managed to build a non-profit that's called Protent City in Orange County, California, that teaches kids using experiential learning. This concept can be applied across the country or around the globe. She started this with an idea in her living room and now millions of people are visiting this museum. She's also helping young entrepreneurs with their ideas. That really was eye-opening for me and that is my why. That is, why do I do this? Because I want fewer children to experience that fear of going into their future. That they should be ready to embrace all that's ahead of them because they have control over that at that point. Sandy, it's great to have you on. Welcome. Thank you. It's great to be here. You have started a non-profit. You started with one idea in your living room, right? That's correct. And have grown it to now about 2.4 million kids go to your facility. Can you tell us how you got started? When I was growing up, I spent a lot of time outdoors playing and role-playing and pretending. And during that time, I didn't realize it, but I was developing the skills that I needed to become the adult I am today. And I say that because there are so many things that we learn through pretend play that we don't realize. And so that is kind of the impetus of my experience. So imagining yourself in different roles. Exactly. So you're out camping and there's nothing around, no campground or anything, and you decide to build a fort out of some twigs. And so that becomes your new home base. And of course, everything develops from there. So I do have a sister who played with me a lot and we would make up plays, we would play dress up, we would play pretend dolls, and all that is so important to our development. So the years go by and I was still pretend playing as my mom loves to share the story about me getting all my students organized and marching them out to our yard and marching them around and having PE outside our home. And that was actually even in as late as the fifth grade, I was pretend playing. So that's kind of how it started. So you were kind of pretending to be the teacher at fifth grade. That's right. With imaginary students. With imaginary students, whether they are my stuffed animals or a real dog, I would have them be my students and I would play banking and other things that I would see in our community. I wanted to try it on for size and see does it fit who I am. I later just kept doing that, but it wasn't pretend. I actually got to experience that. I do believe that that propelled me into going to work. I wanted to work as young as I can remember. So at the age of 13 and a half, I actually got my first job and I was a clerk at a law firm. At a law firm at 13. At a law firm at 13. So I actually got to learn the real skills that I was pretending at such a young age. And so I've worked since then and built those skills in so many different areas, which helps you build a city eventually. I didn't realize it at the time. So you were 13 and a half starting at a law firm. Where did you go from there? It was one of those things you always look for opportunities. And at that time I didn't know, but that was my first experience. Somebody offered me a position. They were leaving town and asked, would I fill their spot? And so of course, yes. If I asked my parents, can, will you drive me every day? And so they drove me to the law firm every day. I did learn, I worked there for two years and actually ended up driving myself because I'd saved enough money to buy my first car, even at 15 and a half before I had my driver's license. But I learned I didn't want to be a lawyer. And so then what was I interested in? I was interested in architecture in my latter years of high school. So I went to work for a home builder and an architect, and I learned how to do those skills. And then I went to college out here at Cal Poly Pomona to be an architect. And I learned that I did not want to be an architect. And so I changed my major to hospitality management. And little did I know, and I thought maybe I'd run a country club someday. Little did I know I'd end up starting a city, and it is kind of a country club for children. But I think in through all those experiences, just as I'm explaining for our children, to give them the opportunity hands-on to learn what they want to do and to be able to pivot, to choose something else, and to explore that, I think is really important. So I have a career resume that doesn't make sense to anyone else, but now I see that my years in all these different occupations that I've had, including video production, including social services, fundraising, that they all came together to help me know how to build a child-sized city in pretend city. So how did you come up with the idea? When was the moment you decided to kind of bring this experience that you had to others? So I had two of my three sons at the time, and I was really wanting to take them to places I didn't have to say no all the time. And just, please don't do that, don't do this, and redirecting them all the time, it felt like, because they're very active boys. And so I'd go to parks and different experiences, and I realized Orange County, as much as I love our community, it didn't really have a lot for young children to do. And yet, at my house, I would put on these elaborate child-sized city things, such as the little tykes have our little cars, and you have the workbench, and you have the little kitchen. And I thought, well, if I'm doing this in my home, why wouldn't other children want to have this experience as well? How did you get the idea to do that in your house? I'm watching how our children, my children, were playing. I'm watching the other children at their preschool, and how they're playing. And everything was really focused around trying things, and hands-on learning, and not just listening, but really doing, and practicing, and really perfecting what they were seeing around them. They wanted to be just like the grown-ups around them. And so it was important to start to equip them with instruments, tools, manipulatives, whatever you want to call them, so that they could actually start to experience those things. As I did that, I watched my children really thrive, whether it was wanting to be the trash man, a fireman, Peter Pan. It didn't really matter, but the more that I enabled them and facilitated what they were interested in, the more I saw them come to life. And the more I got to really know who they were, and what they were interested in, so that I could help facilitate those experiences. Until there's a certain point where they're done, right? They've mastered it. I don't want to be a fireman anymore. I don't want to be the astronaut anymore. That happened when he learned that he didn't like to be dizzy at age three. So anyway, when I'm facilitating those experiences, then they get to see, maybe I don't want to be an astronaut. Maybe I want to try something else. So how did you facilitate that? So you assume that, okay, now you're a garbage man as a kid, and then you will treat them, and you will kind of show them how they're doing their job, and how would that work? Exactly. In a garbage man, so many children love to be the garbage man. All the kids want to be the garbage man. Right, right. Which is, isn't that such an important role in our community? And they're watching that. They're counting on that. They hear the trash man. They hear the different noises in the community, and they're very attuned. What is that? The trash man's coming, you know? So they run out to the gate. So that's part of it, is bending into that, not stifling them. The trash man's coming. Let's go see. What is his job? Watch how the machine works. And so then around the house, how can you be the trash man? Let's see, you do your job. What do you need to wear? Oh, we need to clean our hands after we've touched the trash. So just really helping to let them play that out. And how beautiful is that? They want to take out the trash at two and three years old, right? California Insider is now having events in collaboration with the Epoch Times newspaper. Our next event is here in our studio with Joshua Phillip, who's an investigative reporter and a China expert. He's here to tell us what's happening behind the scenes of the U.S.-China trade wars. Make sure to click on the link below and come to this event. We look forward to seeing you. How did you see the results in them? Did you see the changes? What was the change like? Well, as they are starting to kind of take responsibility for their own world and their own actions, then you see their social skills improve. You see their desire to play a responsible role in the family improve. I do think chores are really important. And there's been studies done now that indicate how important it is to have children do chores in their home. It gives them a sense of helping. And that's one of the areas that is so lacking in our children in Orange County. And I can talk more about how we know that about our children in our community now. But even just that sense of, would you like to bring in the mail? Being a helper, help bring in the groceries is so important at that young age because it does translate. And now they're the ones that are doing that as young adults, right? And so they saw the difference with their friends as they got older, who knew what and how to do those roles in the community. At what point was it that you decided to expand this? I do believe in just watching how my children were playing, really learning more about the developmental milestones. As a parent, you have these children and what do you do with them? And how do you raise them to be responsible citizens and productive citizens and contributing and have empathy and develop skills? And so I learned a lot through their preschool actually. And as I was doing that, I believe that God just dropped a vision in my heart. And that was to provide a place for other children to experience these things. But it wasn't just a place. It was pretend city. It was actually a pretend city. So as I'm exploring this, starting to run some numbers to see, is this even feasible to develop a place where all children can play in a little city where they feel in charge and in control? So about that time, my third child was on the way and I was looking for more numbers to fill out a performance and see, should this be for profit? Should it be a non-profit? How do you get people to come? Would they even be interested in coming? How many children are in Orange County? What is the need? Is there a need? So as I was developing those concepts, and it's not the first business that I've started. And so it was easy for me to know what to do. And my husband at the time said, I think you should call our real estate agent and he'll help you with some of those numbers. How much is a building in Orange County? How big of a building do I need? I said, I can't call him because I don't want somebody to, to steal my idea. And so he said, well, you need to tell him. So I did call him and he said, well, what's your idea? And I said, I can't tell you because I don't want you to steal my idea. And he said, I won't steal your idea. I promise. And I shared with him that I wanted to start a children's museum. And I was looking to know how much space would cost. And he said, well, that's really interesting that that's the concept that you'd like to do because my fiance is interested in starting a children's museum in Orange County. And so I said, that's very exciting. Let's meet. So we met two weeks after my third child was born and we hit it off and we have very different skills, which really helped us build together. So Alex is the co-founder with me of Pretend City. And by then I had developed the concept of a city and she loved the idea and saw the need as well. And so we moved forward together. So we've been together for 29 years. And the idea was to build a Pretend City, right? To, to have kids come there and, and play. Can you tell us more about the idea? Yes. So because I'm a hands-on learner and I believe that most people do learn best by doing. And also we learn best when we're having fun. And so if we provide an environment where children are really having fun playing, they're going to learn. They just, we just do, it's just our nature. And so as we provide that, then can we start to instill a lot of other skills that we'll need as we grow up? Well, then I learned that 90% of the brain is formed by the age of five. That's outstanding. That's phenomenal, right? That most of our brain and the connections in our brain are formed by the age of five. Well, that to me, it took on a whole new meaning. It meant that I, as a parent, had a huge responsibility, more than I ever realized about the importance of that early childhood brain development. And if I was realizing that, I wanted my friends and other people I didn't even know to realize that too, is to understand how important those formative years are. At the same time, I was meeting young people in high school and I would ask them the question, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I've learned since that I rather ask the question, who do you want to be when you grow up? More about who they are as a person and their character, not tied to what they do. So, but I would ask that question and I would get the response of people, these young people, just looking at me like, please don't ask me that question. I'll answer any other question. Don't ask me that one because I don't know what I want to do. They were afraid of their future. And I'm watching my children want to be everything from the garbage man to Peter Pan. And what happened 10 years later at age 16, that they're afraid of their future, that they don't want to even get a driver's license. They don't want to, they're not excited to embrace that they now have the skills and are equipped to go launch into their future. That really was eyeopening for me. And that is my why, that is why do I do this? Because I want fewer children, fewer youth to experience that fear of going into their future, that they should be ready to embrace all that's ahead of them because they have control over that at that point. How does your city work? Pretend City is so much fun from the time before you even come, the children are just the words Pretend City, which my son named when he was three years old. Just the idea of I'm going to a Pretend City. Well, what is that? And so the children are excited even before they come. When they get to Pretend City, they're welcomed by our team. They're given a time card, an actual employment time card. And as they come into the city gates, they're greeted by what looks like Orange County. We have iconic monuments, buildings around our city. They're all child size, hands-on, interactive. And the children just take off. Some will stand there and take it all in, but most just take off. So it's child directed play is what we call it. So the child is in charge of their own learning and their parents are really, or their caregivers or accompanying adults, are the ones that are now following them through this experience. So a child may start over on the right hand side at Trader Joe's and they might go into Trader Joe's and now they get to start to do everything that they've seen the adults in their world do. They can shop, they can put carts away, they can clean, they can do whatever they want. As they do that, they can punch their time card because they've been working. And part of what we do at Pretend City, we have layers and layers of programming around our 16 learning environments. It's everything from a grocery store, which is Trader Joe's right now, to an agriculture area, to construction site. We have a place for an auto service center, a gas station, emergency services, a wellness center with a doctor's office, dentist office, a marine area, an art studio, and a library, and many more. But those are the activities that they can experience or the places they can visit. We also have two areas that reflect different cultures. So about three or four times a year, we change out those environments. And that's our cafe and our house. And so those areas reflect different cultures in our community so that our children learn about those. How do you manage that? Do you have adults that are actually showing them how to manage a grocery store? Can you tell us how it works? Sure, we have an awesome team of brain builders and pretensioneers and volunteers that support them. So brain builders are our highest level of staff and they actually have early childhood experience and they are on the floor to support the children's and the parents' learning experiences. So they can just observe or they might jump in and actually take on a role in the city. They might actually be the grocer, they might actually be the cleaner, and so they engage the child into that type of play, if the child's willing. Well, we do know when you're sitting on the floor, when you're down at a child's level, they are magnetized, they want to play. And so they see our young adults that are working in those areas and they will engage with them. And so it's fun that our staff is equipped and empowered to actually set those experiences in motion. They also serve as a role model to parents to just show, what are those questions that you ask to engage the youth? What are children, what are the things that you can do? And we actually have those even posted around the museum. It's a little bit of signage, not much signage, but it's more in that engagement and the opportunity to engage, which also invites the communication between generations, right? And understanding between generations. You have Trader Joe's there. Can you walk me through how it operates inside your pretend city? Yes, so as you come into Trader Joe's, which we all love, and there's so many opportunities. You can put on an apron and work as a clerk. You can actually go grocery shopping. You might even pick up a shopping list and follow the shopping list and put those things in your cart. You may go over to the produce and weigh the pretend produce. And there's sorting activities. So as our children, because they're young, they might not know the names of things. And so it's an opportunity as they pick up an apple to say, oh, you're picking up a red apple. Or let's pick up some oranges. Which one is an orange? So depending on the child and depending on the interaction that the grown-up wants to have with the child or our staff, the child has very different experiences. So we watch what they want to do in each of our exhibit areas. And then all of a sudden, somebody may ring the bell. Like we hear at Trader Joe's, what does the bell mean? Oh, does two bells mean assistance? And so even that is just part of that playing out. Now, the child may be the cashier or the child may be the one that wants to cash out. And so then there's an exchange of money. So they can do that. And then all of a sudden, the child may be done with that experience and want to take that money to the bank. Just one of our experiences. All of our exhibits are laid out in a very intentional way. All of them have a very in-depth educational content behind them. There is nothing in Pretend City that we do that hasn't been very thought out by educators and experts in the field to ensure that our children are getting the opportunity to grow and learn as much as possible. So everything is done very intentionally. And when you started this, what was the journey like? How did you go from, this is an idea, we want to do this, to actually doing it? Was it difficult to get this up and running? Well, it's a city. So yes, as any city, it is difficult to get up and running. Pretend City is no different. And starting any business is very challenging. First of all, is there a need? Will people come? If so, who, how many, when? And so really kind of tapping into my experience in other areas of entrepreneurship, building out a budget, trying to understand what do we need to grow up responsible citizens? So there's part of it is just a simple business practices, right? To put into place. And other is really wanting to not just build a business, but deliver something that's very meaningful and purposeful. Otherwise, why do it? So in that process, you start to share the idea. And as you do, you find out, are people interested or not interested? And it became a magnet. As you can imagine, all of us want our children to grow up to be responsible citizens and kind human beings. And so as they heard this, it just makes sense. A city makes sense. Now there are about 350 or so children's museums nationally and some internationally, and they all are very different because they reflect their own community. So in learning about Orange County, I attended a lot of different seminars. I shadowed a lot of different people, and I really wanted to learn how the city works. So if we're going to share how a city functions, I wanted to learn that so that I could help impart that. I wanted to meet the people in our community that make our city work. All of our community heroes, whatever jobs they have, are all extremely important. So it's important for me to understand those roles and make those connections because now they become the experts providing the content for Pretend City. At a certain point, you need to invite staff to come on and help fundraise. So I learned how to fundraise and invited staff to come on and help us in the areas of education and help us in the areas of fundraising, help us in the areas of finance, and so inviting the right people in to help. But most importantly was surrounding myself, Alex, and I surrounded ourselves with a board of directors that would help support the vision and also help be ambassadors to share the mission and gather those people that would be the experts that have helped us get to where we are today. So it's been 29 years of building partners, and I think without those partners and those partnerships and the community believing in what we've set out to do, we would not be here today. How did you build those partnerships? It's one meeting at a time. It's one encounter at a time. It's really wanting to know what that person does, who they are, why do they do what they do, and is this really what they want to do? And having them share their areas of expertise with us. A lot of networking, a lot of breakfast, lunch, and dinner meetings, a lot of sharing our ideas, but really listening to their ideas. So my hope is that when people visit Puritan City that they feel a sense of themselves there. They feel like they can even say, oh that was my idea to bring in more plant material. That was my idea to bring in more music into the city. That was my idea to use that color scheme. So hopefully they feel like they have contributed and they are a part of our city. How do you create a sense of responsibility and kindness by having this city, Puritan City? I'm going to go back and share with you what the need is. And why do we need people to be kind, right? What we found in Orange County is some interesting data. And that data comes from what's called the Early Developmental Index. And First 5 Orange County has facilitated the opportunity for a hundred percent of our kindergarten students to be assessed on their developmental milestones. And they do that around five different domains. And so those domains, one of them is about their social competence. So they're evaluating that at kindergarten to see if really they're kindergarten ready. And what they found out overall, over all these domains, is that about 52 percent of our children in Orange County are not fully ready for kindergarten. I'm going to say it again because it's pretty astounding. 52 percent of our children are not necessarily ready in all domains for kindergarten. Which is this is a very rich area. Like it's one of the richest areas in California and the whole world. So that's interesting too because it's not based on their socioeconomics. Interesting. And it's not based on their linguistic skills. So then what is it based on? How come our children are not ready for kindergarten? And the most interesting facts come up. And it's more based, oh and I want to share that the study is conducted around not zip codes, but it's around neighborhoods. And so that is what helps now us to identify which neighborhoods need more support. Because as you know, some zip codes are very large and have both affluent and not affluent areas. So what we've learned is that there are certain pockets in Orange County that have higher needs. Now we know that Anaheim and Santa Ana traditionally are the low, have low socioeconomic areas. We also know that they have a lot of support systems because of that in those areas. So I'm going to share with you two cities that somebody might not think, what? Those two cities, their children are not really kindergarten ready to the level that they should be. And one of them is Lake Forest. Wow. Right here, right next to Irvine, where there's so much offer to our children. And another area is La Habra. So that is, it's far north in our county, but those are two different areas that did not, that were identified, that did not necessarily have the support systems built in that help our children. So Pretend City takes this data, which we, which we haven't had for very long. It's been almost a decade that we've been collecting that information. How is this getting collected before kids get into schools? How are you collecting that information? Our first five here in Orange County actually supports our all public school kindergarten teachers to perform, to collect that data. So they evaluate each public school kindergartner about halfway through the school year, and they assess each individual child. Although the data is collected, it's not on each individual student, but that data is then gathered so that we have this really rich information. So now we can start to address, well, what is missing in our community? And I want to share two things that I think are really important. One of them is we have learned that our children do not have the gross motor skills that they should by the age of five entering kindergarten. Well, what does that mean? Here's a, here's an example. We are all so careful to make sure to put baby gates up to protect our children from falling down the stairs, right? Or, or entering a staircase because they may get hurt. But in that process, now we've removed an opportunity for them to learn how to climb and to navigate the stairs down and to learn how to really stretch their muscles. And so from a very early age, and then they're indoors more than they used to be. They're not out playing in the, in the neighborhood parks or streets as much. And so, and there's a lot of reasons for that. And our parents having sometimes multiple jobs or not having those opportunities to get our children out and playing as much can inhibit their gross motor skills. But that was really important to learn that so that we can help now communicate that to our communities and help, even just, even just knowing what equipment to put in at a playground to help children develop those large gross motor skills. And also the fine motor skills, holding a pencil or crayon, being able to use tweezers or tongs, things like that are so important. The other area that we found was the most lacking in Orange County is a sense of helps and helping and being a good helper, which ties into that kindness. Some of that is so simple. And yet, why is it lacking? And that is we're so independent. And we sometimes don't take time to teach our children or help our children to learn how to be a good helper. It's in kindergarten, they see it when they ask a student to help pass out papers. A student might not want to do that. Well, I don't know about you, but when I was called on to help the teacher, I felt like that was a privilege, right? To be able to be the one that got called on because then I was being responsible. And I would love to hand out the papers. Even things like bringing the mail in from the mailbox. That is such a simple, would you like to help me? And, and asking for help. How many of us don't like to ask for help? But how many of us love to help somebody when they ask? So learning those skills at the age of one, two, three, eight years old is so important. And so that is one of the skills that Pretend City just helps children develop when they play at Pretend City. You now help other nonprofits, right? This is not your full-time role now, right? That's true. That's true. I'm going to tell you two things. One is we have 250 partners and collaborative partners at Pretend City. So now that we have so many at Pretend City, you can imagine, like I mentioned, we are not the experts at a lot of things. And so we bring those experts in and they become our play partners. So anywhere from the Orange County Department of Education, Help Me Grow. There's Beyond Blindness is one of our partners, a very important partner that helps our children in certain areas and, and helps our parents. Regional Center of Orange County. We do developmental screenings so that they can learn what their, how their child is developing. And we can come back to that. What I do now is because I've developed these skills and learning more about nonprofit business development and fundraising is I am passionate about helping people start their own organization. So most of my calls, interestingly enough, come from children and youth that have an idea. And so we talk about the need and the like, what problem do they want to solve? And so I get the wonderful privilege of hearing their ideas and helping in most cases for them to facilitate starting their own nonprofit. Now we don't need a whole lot of nonprofit, more nonprofits and fundraising is challenging and a lot of students aren't ready to take on that responsibility, but even just being able to encourage them in developing those ideas and dreams and knowing what the next steps are to complete those. And then for some they're ready to go. And so we actually walk through the steps of starting a nonprofit together. I train them on just simple things like how to choose the right board members, how to raise funds, how to make sure to file your government filings on time, and things like that. Have you thought about expanding this to other areas outside of your Orange County? We've thought about it and decided no. Puritan City is such a unique place and it really does reflect the Orange County community. Many of our buildings look like icons around Orange County, such as our gathering spaces. Orange Circle, it looks like Orange Plaza, our version of it. Our art museum looks like the Laguna Center for College and Design. And so as much as we would love to share this experience with others, it's really important that each community... They develop their own based on their own city. That's right. Here's a good example. One of the things that's important for our children to learn is that if you pour something down the storm drain, it actually drains to the ocean here. If you live in Kansas, then that would not really be an exhibit or a learning opportunity that would benefit those children. They would have other ones potentially. Maybe they would need to know how to prepare for a tornado warning or something like that. So Puritan City is really reflective of our community and we want to keep it that way. Has there anybody else that reached out to you from other areas of the world wanting to do this? Yes, we've heard from Canada, from other cities. Absolutely. They see the several things. They see that there's an opportunity to help our youngest citizens grow up to be responsible, productive, contributing members of their community. There's also a really rich economic impact. Children's museums bring about $13 for every dollar invested into the community. And so we provide an opportunity for businesses to start to realize that it's not at kindergarten that they want to start targeting or investing in children. It really is at prenatal and at birth that you want to start investing in children and really helping to support those first five years for sure and then into those kindergarten and early elementary years so that the foundations of learning are built and those synapses are connected so that they will be ensured by the time they get to third grade that they will have the literacy, the math skills, the social skills, and the propensity to have those career and employment opportunities. So when we speak to our business community, it's really important that they understand that you cannot start building those skills too early. That the importance of investing in early childhood really is your new neighbors, right? Your future neighbors. It's your future employees. It's your future students and classmates who you're in school with. So if we want to have a thriving economy in Orange County, it's important that we raise up the children to want to stay in Orange County and be able to be employed here and work here. And any other part of California too. Any other cities can do the same, right? Absolutely and we have some wonderful children's museums throughout the state. San Diego has a fantastic one. Bay Area Discovery Museum up in Sausalito is another fantastic one and those are just two but they're definitely throughout the whole state. They're very valuable resources for all families. For our viewers that are in California and outside California beyond across the globe, what recommendations do you have? I think it's important to when you come up with an idea to be able to share it with somebody else with several people and see what they think. I think it's important to get that feedback. Sometimes an idea is not necessarily a good idea or it may not work but I will also say it's really important not to give up on it too early either because there's a lot of people that'll just say no no no and I think that how do you know if it's a good idea? It'll just keep following you around. It won't let go and even if you say I just I don't want to do that. I don't have the energy. I don't have the strength. I don't know the right people. I don't have the right money. There's something to be said if that idea does not leave and it's like a light bulb that never goes off even when you try to turn it off it just pops back on then I think that that's something you should pay attention to and start to see if you can get some traction. How do you do that again? It's with sharing it with other trusted people in your circle that can give you good feedback and then you start asking who else should I share this with and hopefully they'll introduce you to others that can help you on your way. Sandy Stone, founder of Pretend City in Orange County. It was great to have you on California Insider. Thank you so much for having me on behalf of our board and our staff. I just want to say thank you so much for inviting us on and the opportunity to share about Pretend City. Thank you for what you guys do for the community. Thank you.