Wed, Oct 22

You have 33 minutes until the sun sets—and no internet, no books, and no school within 15 miles. What do you do?

That’s the question 10-year-old Mateo faced every day in the high desert outskirts of Española, New Mexico. His school had moved online, the bus routes were cut, and his parents were working late shifts an hour away.

By the time he found a signal on his mom’s borrowed phone, the lesson was over.

Multiply that by thousands of kids across rural New Mexico and you start to see the emergency unfolding: an education system unraveling where geography and poverty intersect—and no cavalry on the horizon.

Until someone decided to build the cavalry on wheels.

🚐 What Happens When the School Can’t Come to You

The education crisis in rural New Mexico wasn’t new—but the pandemic exposed it like never before.

Entire counties with no broadband. Libraries shuttered. Schools attempting Zoom without electricity. Students sitting on curbs outside gas stations just to connect to Wi-Fi.

But what broke hearts broke open ideas. And that’s when Dr. Leila Montoya, a former librarian turned ed-tech activist, stepped in with a wild idea:
What if we didn’t wait for kids to get to school—and brought the learning to them instead?

That’s how Libraries Without Walls was born.

It started with one retrofitted van, stacked with solar-charged tablets, picture books in English and Navajo, and foldable learning pods that could pop up in a church lot, a desert trailhead, or a parking space behind a Dollar General.

Each pod came with:

• A digital hotspot powered by solar panels

• Story circles and math manipulatives for all ages

• A trained literacy coach or STEM mentor

• And culturally relevant curricula tied to New Mexico’s Indigenous and Latinx histories

They didn’t just bring books. They brought belonging.

💡 The Brains (and Heart) Behind the Wheels

Dr. Montoya wasn’t alone. She teamed up with:

• Samuel Yazzie, a Diné coder and robotics coach who wanted to teach rural teens how to build drones, not just fly them.

• La Escuelita Libre, a coalition of parents-turned-educators who had been hosting sidewalk learning sessions long before “pod” became a buzzword.

• The Santa Fe County Youth Services Department, looking for an alternative to summer learning loss and dropout spikes.

Together, they imagined a state-wide fleet of mobile, modular education zones. Not a substitute for schools—but a bridge between what existed and what was needed.

They had the vision. They had the community buy-in. They even had a partnership with a local auto body shop to upcycle old bookmobiles.

What they didn’t have? The kind of funding that turns ingenuity into infrastructure.

Enter yours truly.

🕶️ How I Found the Pod People

I first heard about them through a tweet—yes, a tweet—with a photo of a toddler sitting inside a turquoise dome labeled “Pop-Up Pueblo Pod,” flipping through a bilingual picture book while her older brother coded on a tablet beside her.

The caption read:

“When the internet goes out, the story stays on. #LibrariesWithoutWalls #NewMexicoStrong”

I reached out. They replied instantly. By the following week, I was riding shotgun in their flagship van, “La Lectura Llama,” down a dusty road into Mora County. They were pulling up to a rancher’s field to deliver the week’s lessons to seven kids who hadn’t seen a classroom in months.

I looked around and thought, This isn’t just a program. It’s a prototype for the post-school future.

🧠 Turning a Mobile Miracle into a Multi-Million Dollar Movement

We needed a funding strategy as flexible—and ambitious—as the pods themselves.

I helped Dr. Montoya and team frame it not as a temporary fix, but as a transformational rural learning infrastructure. Here’s how we did it:

We aligned it with:

• The Department of Education’s Full-Service Community Schools Grant

• IMLS National Leadership Grants for Libraries

• The American Rescue Plan’s Rural Innovation Fund

• The W.K. Kellogg Foundation, with a focus on Native and Latinx youth empowerment

But we didn’t just submit budgets and logic models. We embedded QR codes in the application that led to student-made videos from the pods.

One fifth-grader said:

“When the van comes, I don’t feel left out anymore.”

That line? That’s what made the reviewers cry. And fund.

💰 Funded, Fueled, and Flying

Here’s what hit:

• $2.2 million from the Department of Education over four years

• $500,000 from the Kellogg Foundation

• $300,000 in local business and tribal matching funds

• Donated EV retrofitting from a regional green tech startup

The results?

• 12 fully equipped Pop-Up Learning Pods now travel across seven counties

• Over 4,000 students served in Year One

• 400+ parents trained as volunteer facilitators

• An 18-month pilot is underway with the Navajo Nation to localize content in Diné Bizaad

• And Mateo? He now leads a peer-led science club from his family’s porch on pod days

Dr. Montoya cried when the second van rolled out. She named it “El Cohete”—The Rocket.

🧭 Grant Money’s Pod-Wise Lessons

Let me land this with five truths, straight from the desert:

1. Distance is not disinterest.
   Just because a kid lives far doesn’t mean they’re checked out. Bring the learning to them—and watch them light up.

2. Fund flexibility like it’s infrastructure.
   Pop-up doesn’t mean pop-in. It means nimble, nimble, nimble. Structure your budget for mobility and maintenance.

3. Local design = long-term dignity.
   Everything from the books to the shade tents was co-designed with parents and elders. That’s why it sticks.

4. Show, don’t just tell.
   Our QR code pitch? It hit harder than a 12-page appendix.

5. If the system can’t reach them, build one that does.
   Whether it’s a van, a tablet, or a tent—education without walls might be the only kind that still gets through.

🚐 Ready to Roll in Your Own Community?

Maybe your neighborhood doesn’t need a van. Maybe it needs a bike cart, a barbershop lab, or a converted bus stop. The shape doesn’t matter.

The purpose does.

You bring the map.
I’ll bring the fuel.

Let’s get learning rolling again.

– Mr. Grant Money

💬 Discussion Questions

1. What assumptions do we make about where and how learning has to happen—and who gets left behind when we stick to them?

2. How could mobile or pop-up education models address gaps in your own community—whether due to geography, poverty, or crisis?

3. What role should libraries, parks, churches, or other community spaces play in 21st-century education?

4. Have you ever experienced or seen a learning moment outside of a classroom that changed someone’s life? What made it powerful?

5. If you had a van, a grant, and a dream—what kind of “education without walls” would you create? Who would it serve?