Back to School

Elizabeth Garcia likes to plan 10 years in advance.

That helps explain why she's about to expand the early learning school she founded, Discovery Day Academy, with a $5 million building in Bonita Springs.

A native of Clewiston who grew up on the family cattle ranch, Garcia borrowed $50,000 from the First Bank in Clewiston by putting a second mortgage on her home to build her first Discovery Day Academy in the rural town in 2007. “We built it from scratch,” she says, noting the Clewiston school now has 110 students through kindergarten.