How did we get started?

L.E.A.D. began in the Rock Island High School INCubator edu class. In this class we were put into teams in order to develop a business. It began in the ideation stage where we had to think of problem we had faced. Once we validated a problem we then had to find a solution and make a business our of it.
Throughout the year each team was given a mentor to help the team. Our mentor was Tracy White. Ms. White does many things in our community so she had been the best choice for L.E.A.D..
During the class we had to present our business model three times, although our team did do other pitches in our community. The MVP, minimum valuable product, was our first pitch. It had been more of a practice pitch for the academic pitch. The top 5 teams from the academic pitch then went on to the final pitch, which had many people from the community in the audience. That night L.E.A.D. won the award for Best Pitch, and Best Business Model. 
Our teacher Mrs. Matson was so proud of our team that she submitted a video of our pitch to INCubatoredu. They loved our pitch so much that we were invited to their National Summit along with 4 other teams from around the country. There L.E.A.D.  was awarded $7,500 for our start-up expenses.