Steve and Amy Coyer continue to invest in Eagle County education with a new early year education foundation fund 

When Karla Robledo met Steve and Amy Coyer, she was a senior in high school, uncertain about the future ahead of her. She was a first-generation student and immigrant, with many unanswered questions, so she applied for a local scholarship that might pave a way, and stood in front of a panel to tell her story. She didn’t receive the scholarship, but what she didn’t realize at the time was that a beacon of hope sat in the same room, and that was Amy Coyer. 

Amy and her husband Steve approached Robledo with a proposal to support her financially through her first year of college. She accepted, and after a strong first year, the Coyers continued to support her academic journey. Robledo stayed in touch every step of the way, and now, a decade later, they are officiating her wedding. 

Robledo is just one of the many young minds that Steve and Amy Coyer have devoted their lives to supporting. For more than 20 years, they’ve spent their time championing and bolstering the Eagle County education system. From volunteering at schools and mentoring young teens to providing scholarships for students, the Coyers know that Eagle County schools and education centers need assistance. 

Now, they plan to continue their aid through the launch of the Coyer Foundation for Early Learning, a fund to support early childhood education. The foundation, which has been funded with $2 million from the Coyers, was created to provide grants to local childcare centers and schools that concentrate on early year learning.

There are almost 40 licensed early childcare providers in the valley that serve about 2,000 young students in Eagle County. As Eagle County education faces ongoing funding struggles, Steve and Amy have also seen firsthand how early childcare programs are struggling to stay afloat. 

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“The one glaring spot that seemed unfunded to us is early childhood education in the valley,” Steve said. “It’s a real kind of month-to-month small business. They can’t afford to raise the tuition high enough to have a really nice, beautiful facility, nor can they charge enough to pay the teachers.” 

“The economics of early childhood centers just don’t [base] support almost anywhere solely on private tuition,” Amy said. 

The Coyers’ journey began when Steve joined YouthPower365 — previously known as Youth Foundation — an Eagle River Valley nonprofit that supports around 3,000 kids from pre-K to college. At the time, the foundation was looking to start a First Tee chapter, which teaches kids life skills through the game of golf, and turned to Steve to be a teacher and mentor. 

Steve and Amy’s involvement in childhood education was jump-started. They participated in enrichment programs at local schools, tutored kids at the Aspen Mobile Home, and continued to work with YouthPower365, including Steve eventually becoming the chair of the nonprofit and Amy volunteering on YouthPower365’s Magic Bus, a mobile preschool program. 

“You go into these schools, and you see all these happy faces running around. It’s exciting for us to see that,” said Steve. 

Melisa Rewold-Thuon, the Eagle County School District’s assistant superintendent of student support services, has known the Coyers since they helped fund Avon Elementary’s summer program. Rewold-Thuon described that she has seen many families who don’t qualify for federal education services because, while they do fall below the poverty line due to the cost of living in the area, they don’t fall below the federal line. 

“(The Coyers) really have a soft spot in their hearts to make sure that everybody in our community gets a really good education and reducing any of those barriers that could be preventing our kids or families from succeeding,” she said. 

Steve and Amy not only have helped the children, but also have helped fund staff at local schools, including supporting a full-time behavorial health counselor at Avon Elementary. 

Avon Elementary Principal Dana Harrison met the Coyers when she was a teacher and ran the afterschool program. She said that she knew them first as volunteers who read with the kids, which then grew into them having a more prominent role in supporting the school. Although they don’t have children of their own, she said, they have a community of children. 

During her time in the district, Harrison has also seen her students receive aid for college from the Coyer’s Youth Power Scholarship Fund, which they started in 2022 as a way to provide more support for Eagle County high school students.

“We have a lot of families who have made a ton of sacrifices for their children to be here, and education is so important to them, but there’s a ton of barriers,” Harrison said.  “That (Amy and Steve) are willing to give so much away to impact children and future generations of family is super touching,” Harrison said. 

The Coyers didn’t stop there. They turned to early childhood education when they saw that about 90% of a child’s brain development happens in the early stages of life. 

“Going to a nice school, where you’re getting curriculum that’s been designed to stimulate the brain and establish the neural pathways and all that, it can make such a difference in a young person’s life,” Steve said. 

Steve has played a role in the planning and development of the Vail Valley Foundation’s new Lettuce Patch Early Learning Center, which is set to open in fall 2026. At about 13,600 square feet, the education center will have space for about 160 kids, with 12 classrooms and three outdoor playgrounds. He’s also been involved on the board of the Family Learning Center, one of the largest private childcare centers, which is planned to relocate to Edwards River Park. 

These new and improved centers, will provide Eagle County families more options in early childcare. However, Steve and Amy also want to support existing ones as well. With their new foundation, they will give early childcare centers the opportunity to apply for a grant and discuss their needs. From leaky roofs and new playgrounds to funding teachers to expand their skill sets, the Coyers are all ears. 

While they have the $2 million limit now, their goal is to build a strong track record to receive outside funding to continue the foundation. 

“So our hope would be that this would be something that would be sustained and live beyond what we’ll be able to do,” Steve said. 

“(The Foundation) is about this emotional connection, and sitting down with the leaders of childcare, and listening to them, and trying to zero in their philanthropy to the area that will help most; it’s pretty remarkable,” said Matt Imhof, the president of the Vail Valley Foundation. 

“We’re talking thousands and thousands of kids that basically because of them have a different life trajectory,” he said. 

And Karla Robledo is proof of that. She went on to get her degree in art education and even went back for her master’s degree. Now she teaches in Denver and has been helping YouthPower365 in the summer, working to hopefully one day provide the same opportunity she was once given. 

“Them believing in me, that is what has inspired me,” she said. “They changed everything for me.”