our story
Love Well Spent began with a year of service.
Our founder, Dade Akindude served as a service-learning coordinator with HandsOn Battle Creek in Battle Creek, Michigan, working alongside students, teachers, and community members to embed service learning into education. That year taught her what it means to give one's time, talent, and treasure to strangers who soon become family.
When her service year ended, Dade became a teacher convinced that service learning belonged at the center of every classroom. But rigid curricula and tight schedules made it nearly impossible to create the kind of meaningful learning experiences she'd seen work in Battle Creek. Teaching special education added another layer of conviction: every learner has individual needs the factory model of education cannot serve.
The conviction stayed with her.
As she explored alternative learning models, she found her way to the homeschool and Indie Education community and discovered something surprising. Families taking ownership of their children's education have remarkable agency, but almost no advocacy or resources outside their own networks. The institutions designed to support families largely overlook this growing movement.
Love Well Spent began as her personal service learning project, dedicated to standing alongside homeschool and independent education families with the resources, advocacy, and connection they deserve.
how the Digital Access Grant began
In 2022, Love Well Spent's work was simple: listening. By participating in homeschool communities online; not to promote anything, but to hear what families were actually navigating. Love Well Spent began to understand the real shape of need in this community.
In one of those communities, an anonymous post stopped everything. A homeschool mom in a domestic violence situation needed a computer to survive for safety, for income, for staying connected. At nearly the same moment, Love Well Spent received a donation of 50 refurbished laptops.
The match was obvious. The question that followed — who else? — became the Digital Access Grant.
Today, DAG is Love Well Spent's flagship program. We've placed devices with homeschool families across 18 states. We hold a national waitlist of 350+ vetted families. And as of 2026, we operate in partnership with Computers 4 People, expanding what we can do for the families who count on us.
what guides our work
Three convictions shape everything Love Well Spent does:
service is a lifestyle
Service learning isn't a curriculum unit or an extracurricular. It's how we build relationships, learn from one another, and respond to the needs around us. It's the foundation of how Love Well Spent operates.
indie education needs advocacy
The families who choose to educate outside traditional systems are too often left out of the conversations that affect them. Love Well Spent exists to change that.
dignity is non-negotiable
Families come to us in some of their hardest moments. We trust families to know their own needs. We don't require proof of hardship. We listen first.
who we serve
Love Well Spent serves homeschool and independent education families across the United States, with particular focus on:
- Single-parent households
- Families raising students with special needs
- Families navigating housing instability, medical hardship, or safety concerns
- Underserved homeschool communities in rural and historically overlooked regions
where we are today
- 501(c)(3) nonprofit, founded 2018
- National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) Affiliate
- VELA Education Fund Member
- Candid Silver Seal of Transparency, 2026
- Computers 4 People Partner Network member, 2026
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211
students reached
18
states reached
46
devices awarded
5 ★
average family rating
where we're going
Love Well Spent's long-term vision is to be a trusted resource and advocate within the growing Indie Education movement: the families and founders rebuilding education from the ground up. The organization is committed to ensuring that homeschool and independent education families have the resources, curricula, community, and advocacy they need to thrive — with service learning at the center.
The next chapters include expanding the device pipeline through the Computers 4 People partnership, developing service learning curricula designed for homeschool environments, deepening our work alongside VELA and the broader Indie Education community, and growing a national community of families and educators committed to education that meets every learner where they are.
Love Well Spent aims to reach
5k
service projects
20k
tech devices
51
United States
get involved
There are many ways to be part of this work:
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