Who We Are

Mission & Vision

Horizons Hampton Roads advances educational equity by building long-term partnerships with students, families, communities, and schools to create experiences outside of school that inspire the joy of learning.

Our VISION is a future where every child thrives.

Our History

For more than 25 years, Horizons Hampton Roads has fostered the potential of thousands of local children, ensuring they are better prepared to succeed in school and in life. Founded in 1999 with kindergarten classes in Norfolk and Virginia Beach, we grew each year, building a solid reputation for high quality programming for K-8th grade students. In 2008, we added a 3rd site in Portsmouth. We now serve more than 400 K-12 students through our summer and year-round programs.

Horizons makes a long-term commitment to our students, inviting them to return year-to-year, expanding on their learning, enrichment and career readiness - all while creating meaningful, lasting relationships with dedicated teachers and staff, and their fellow students. Our students, parents and staff make up the HORIZONS FAMILY—committed to helping children develop to their full potential and to chase their dreams to fruition! HORIZONS - FOR - LIFE!

• 1999 - Horizons Hampton Roads (HHR) is founded by Paul Hirschbiel, along with Will King, Head of School at Norfolk Collegiate and Dan Richardson, Head of School at Cape Henry Collegiate; The Virginia Beach site moved to Chesapeake Bay Academy in 2009 and remained there until 2023. Norfolk Collegiate has hosted Horizons for 26 years!
• 2006 - HHR serves 200+ K-8 students at the 2 Inaugural sites
• 2007 - HHR selected as a Jane Batten endowment recipient in partnership with the Hampton Roads Community Foundation (then the Norfolk Foundation), an honor among 15+ area nonprofits that would receive $1Mil in funds and a challenge to create a separate endowment owned by each of the nonprofits.
• 2008 - Judge Richard Bray and the Beazley Foundation support opening our 3rd site with Portsmouth Catholic Regional School as our site partner. They continue to host us today!
• 2010-2016 - HHR participates in longitudinal research that finds Horizons students more likely to graduate on time, achieve higher academically, and have fewer absences and additional indicators o' school success.
• 2010-2019 - Program grows to near capacity serving an average of 350 students each summer.
• 2020-2021 - Horizons serves students virtually due to COVID-19
• 2022 - Horizons resumes in-person programming at all 3 sites, enrolling close to 300 our first year back.
• 2022 - HHR launches year-round high school program to support academic success, social-emotional wellness, service leadership, and post-secondary education readiness - serves 65 students the 1st year
• 2023 - Enrollment reaches 343 with wait lists of 77 students across the 3 localities. We partner with more than 70 program providers and major funders to bring innovative STEM and career focused programming.
• 2024 - HHR adopts a 4^th program pillar of Environmental Stewardship, teaching our students about the importance of protecting the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, and our entire planet, in order to ensure a thriving world for their future.
  - HHR also launches a summer High School Internship seminar that includes community-based, hands-on job shadowing experiences – offering students real life opportunities to explore career interests – and more dreams and launched! We name the program, “LaunchPad.” We serve over 45 students the first summer and over 60 in 2025!
• 2025 - HHR receives our largest grant to date, from the Environmental Protection Agency to continue teaching the importance of environmental stewardship for at least 3 more years. We are also supported with environmental education funding from 3 additional foundations, demonstrating a state and national commitment to teaching this generation the importance of protecting our natural resources.