The literacy miracle that saw the scores of Indian River County children soar in the last decade – rocketing from among the lowest in Florida to the second highest – will be celebrated next week when the “Moonshot Video Series” debuts at Riverside Theatre.

The 10-part video production by award-winning filmmaker Jeff Martin documents the extraordinary Moonshot Moment initiative, which saw a partnership between concerned parents, generous 32963 donors and the local school district bring third-grade literacy here from 54 percent in 2015 to 71 percent today.

Martin – whose most recent film “Sentenced,” narrated by NBA basketball star Steph Curry, focuses on how illiteracy led to lives of poverty, drug abuse and crime for four adults – says he caught wind of the Learning Alliance’s remarkable success in increasing childhood literacy here last year, and flew to Vero to see for himself.

The filmmaker says he was blown away by what he found. 

“When you pour yourself into what I saw while filming ‘Sentenced,’ and then run into this uplifting project right after, it is such a gift,” Martin said. The upshot: A 10-part series on the Moonshot Moment designed to “inspire and equip others” to undertake similar initiatives in their own communities.

“I have been in the cause of literacy in underserved communities most of my adult life in schools across Oregon,” Martin said. “In many schools, the students have the run of the classroom. But something felt different in Vero Beach. There’s order here. The kids are performing off the charts.”

The dedicated community involvement he saw outside the classroom also impressed him deeply.

“They have built something sustainable with (School Superintendent Dr. David) Moore, and it can now be a model for the country,” Martin said. “They are on the ground every day turning around the lives of kids who will graduate high school and have choices. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever been a part of.”

“It is an extraordinary honor to have our story told on a national stage,” Moore said in a statement. “The Moonshot Series is a testament to our educators, families, and community partners who are proving that literacy success for all students is possible.

“The video series is a validation of how we’re doing this work. It’s super exciting to be a part of it.”

The trailer for the series will debut at the preview event at Riverside Theatre at 6 p.m. on Oct. 2. Episodes will then be released throughout the school year.

The literary miracle chronicled in the 10-part series got its start in 2010 when two local mothers, Barbara Hammond and Liz Remington, couldn’t find help for their children, who were struggling to learn how to read. The women approached retired executive Ray Oglethorpe with a request for him to help start a private school.

“I did not want to start a school,” said Oglethorpe, whose impressive resume includes stints at the helms of IBM and America Online. “I told them we should instead partner with the school district. Given my background in business, we decided to apply the venture capital business model to the social nonprofit environment.”

Starting with a few of his John’s Island neighbors, Oglethorpe assembled a team of “social venture capitalists” to serve as founding donors for the Learning Alliance.

“We asked them to make a commitment, just like you do in a venture business, that if we reached certain milestones and objectives, they would continue to fund us the money,” Oglethorpe told Vero Beach 32963. “Putting this model together of private philanthropy coupled with public education is something very, very unique. It turned out to be an outrageous success for us.”

Hammond, Remington and Oglethorpe visited then-assistant school superintendent Fran Adams with an offer Adams couldn’t refuse: “We said, we want to bring in best practices to grades K through 3, and we’ll fund it,” Hammond said.

The three committed not just to improve third-grade literacy, but to bring it from nearly the lowest in the state to at least 90 percent.

“People heard us announce our 90 percent Moonshot goal and thought we were crazy,” Hammond said.

It was kind of a crazy goal, considering how low literacy was in local schools and the level of poverty in the district. But a decade later, the skeptics have become believers.

At Vero Beach Elementary School, the lowest performing school in the district, where 70 percent of children are living in poverty, the literacy rate has gone up 33 percent in just the last three years.

“The message that I hope people pick up is that it’s a crime to allow so many kids to fail,” Oglethorpe said. “We know how to fix it – it just takes the will, the support, the training and the involvement of the community, like what has happened here in Indian River County. Now we just need to do it across the country.”

Next February, the school district and the Learning Alliance will co-host a national conference in Indian River County, welcoming education leaders from across the country to learn firsthand from the district’s successes and accelerate progress in their own communities. The video series will be featured during the summit.

The Moonshot Video Series then will be available on the Children’s Literacy Project’s website, accessible for free to all schools and communities.