A Baltimore educational company recently opened a 4,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Medfield, the latest pivot for the company after nearly shutting down during the pandemic.
FutureMakers is using the facility at Union Collective to build teaching materials for school districts across the country. The firm got its start in 2012 teaching woodworking classes at schools and summer camps, but had to pivot when the pandemic canceled all in-person instruction. Since FutureMakers could no longer provide instruction in schools, CEO Matt Barinholtz decided to bring hands-on learning to students by creating projects that people could assemble at home.
“We would have closed down,” Barinholtz said of the pandemic pivot. “But because educators were saying our ‘kids need things to do,’ I realized it’d be easy for us to get these materials together.”
The company moved into the new facility in October. The company ran out of space at its former location in Woodberry at the Clipper Mill complex, eventually expanding into a second office in the neighborhood before moving to Union Collective. Alongside the physical expansion, the company is raising $450,000 of venture capital and is looking to work with firms focused on social impact.
The company's products teach students basic concepts about how machines work through fun hands-on activities. For example, an electric car powered by a double AA battery can show students how electrical circuits function. All the toys, or what Barinholtz calls “playful engineering materials,” are constructed by children from a set of parts so they learn how the device functions and feel a sense of accomplishment in creating something themselves. Staff began distributing products at food distribution centers across Baltimore City during the pandemic, going from having no business to serving 15,000 students with materials in months.
“Most kids get a lot of access to screens, which is cool, but they don't have access to [building] stuff,” Barinholtz said. “So we're losing that sense of ownership and pride.”
FutureMakers already works with large clients, such as Johns Hopkins University, Prince George’s County Public Schools and the New Orleans public library and Barinholtz is actively recruiting teachers beyond Maryland. This week, he is driving to Minneapolis with thousands of products to meet with art educators.
Barinholtz attributed the successful shift to the fact that even when the company was focused on in-person instruction, many of his staff members were already familiar with creating the products at a small scale for students. He credited Conscious Venture Lab and Loyola University Maryland's Baltipreneurs program with teaching him how to access capital and how to make manufacturing profitable. Help from other manufacturing-focused entities like Made in Baltimore and K & W Finishing also enabled a smooth transition, he said.
“Baltimore’s a manufacturing community,” Barinholtz said. “People care, they want to help and they’re interested in not just building their business, but building relationships and sharing their knowledge.”
FutureMakers is not the only education focused company to see growth after a successful business pivot during the pandemic. Concentric Educational Solutions has become one of Baltimore's most notable success stories, growing from 20 staff members in 2020 to 147 in 2023 when demand for tutoring and other student services exploded during Covid-19.
