Reflecting on 2020

A Letter from Melissa Lopez, our CEO

Wow – 2020 has finally ended, and we look forward to beginning a new chapter to start off 2021. As we take a moment to reflect on what the past year brought us, we recognize that it was a year of challenge and struggle, but also a year of growth and positivity.

Here is a general recap of what the past year looked like for Positive Adventures…

I joined Positive Adventures in February 2020 as their newly appointed CEO. I was excited to execute a strong and aggressive business growth plan that I helped create in conjunction with the company’s Founders. Our plan was to scale the business and spin out a new entity to divide the company into two – one that focused on youth programming, with the other concentrated solely on the corporate team programs. Little did I know that within the next month, I would be closing down the office due to the COVID-19 global pandemic and struggling to identify a way to keep our business afloat. 

We scrambled immediately to focus on the health and safety of our team members, and then recognized that we were in a position where all of our team building and youth programs for 2020 would be canceled. Feeling defeated and crushed both financially and professionally, we dove into transitioning our offerings into the virtual space. With our clients transitioning to a remote model we knew that interpersonal and team connectivity was critical more than ever, so we spent countless days and weeks pivoting our business model to service our clients with virtual programs.

Our lockdown plan consisted of investing our time and energy into online programs and workshops with our clients, as well as focusing our marketing and entrepreneurial skills into re-branding our corporate team building division. While not having any other choice but to downsize our team, we bonded together to accomplish some amazing goals.

To our amazement and surprise, we were able to successfully modify our team-building programs into the virtual space, and within three weeks post initial shutdown, we were back up and operating online events! As we continued to roll out new online experiences to meet our clients’ needs, word spread of our mission to help teams and students stay connected.

In addition to our virtual experiences, we successfully delivered outdoor Summer Camp Programs within the San Diego community for parents who were in need of safe and fun outdoor adventures for their children. We carefully initiated and followed strict CDC protocols and guidelines during the 6-week summer period of over 60 campers coming through our outdoor education experience healthy and fulfilled. Next, we jumped into the Fall with “Back to School” virtual programs for our school partners and continued to ramp up and expand our corporate team virtual workshops. By year’s end, we delivered over 250 online programs to schools and businesses on a global level.

And…. that earlier mention of a company re-brand? We were able to pull this off too, and we are excited to unveil in the coming weeks our new face and positioning of our Corporate Program division – we look forward to sharing it with each and every one of you!

So as we start off this New Year with a renewed energy and hope of an end to an incredibly challenging moment of time within our world, we embrace the “new normal” and recognize that life as we once knew it within business may likely never be the same. And this is actually a good thing. We have all learned to survive during times of struggle, adjust our daily actions, and have been able to really appreciate and value the time we are able to spend with one another to connect, share in laughter, bond, learn, and grow.

Most importantly, we thank each and every one of you for your constant support and for believing and working with us to help you and your teams stay connected. We are looking forward to a new year, a new beginning and continuous new opportunities to be able to continue to partner with each and every one of you who made our survival during this time of uncertainty happen.

Cheers to 2021!

Melissa Lopez, CEO

Ryan Shortill, Founder

Jered Cherry, Co-Founder