Claudia Sandino
Founder & Executive Director
I'm a first-generation Latina, raised in a blue-collar household where entrepreneurship wasn't even part of our vocabulary. The roadmap I was handed was simple: work twice as hard as everyone else, earn straight A's, and climb the corporate ladder. So I did. I graduated from my dream college and spent fifteen years building digital brands at the highest levels of corporate America.
Then, at 36, I became a mother, and the reality of that world hit me with brutal clarity. It was never built for working mothers. I lived through layoffs while carrying the full weight of providing for my family, and I learned the most expensive lesson of my life: our kids graduate with plenty of knowledge, but almost no one teaches them to build something of their own. They leave school ready to fill a role, not to create one.
So I built The Family Seed Foundation for kids like the little girl I used to be, the working-class and immigrant children whose families were never handed the playbook for building wealth or starting a business.
Children have the most fearless imaginations in the world. Instead of letting that spark fade, we help them see themselves as creators and owners from day one. In our Miami programs, kids ages 7 to 16 build with AI, run real micro-businesses, publish their own books, learn chess, and stand on stage at a Shark Tank-style Pitch Night to defend an idea that's entirely theirs. One nine-year-old came home and explained profit margins to her mom. An eleven-year-old made $80 selling sticker packs at our market day and is now saving for a printer to make more.
We're not replacing what schools do. We're adding the piece that's missing. Every seat is free, so cost never decides which child gets to build.