Living the Mission

1/20/2026

The numbers are in, and — no surprise, really — they speak volumes about the growth, success, and impact of The Peavey Project.

When Collin McConaghy and Jake McDonald left Collegiate’s Summer Quest office in 2021 to create their non-profit designed to teach mindfulness as a life skill, one of their goals was to serve more than 100 athletic teams in a wide variety of sports.

Though they had no specific timetable, they surpassed that standard in 2025.

This past year, they provided 340 sessions, 300 of which required either complete or partial funding, presented before upwards of 70 different teams and corporate and community groups, and served about 4,500 individuals.

“It was a really good year,” said McConaghy, who’s also Collegiate’s head varsity football coach and program leader. “We’re moving forward. Fundraising was awesome, which has really prompted us to go out and truly live the mission for years to come.”

One day recently, McConaghy and McDonald spoke of their progress and dream for the future.

It sounds like The Peavey Project is in a really good place.

Collin: Obviously, we love living the mission and working with people, but we now have our new website up and are starting to create the content for the resource page so we can enhance the product for the folks we’re working with. So often when we work with teams, they’re like, “Can you send me a meditation? I want to hear your voice.” Now, they’ll have access to that on the website. That’ll allow us to expand our reach as well to folks outside of Richmond, out of state, and — who knows? — out of the country as far as being able to provide a high quality mindfulness and mental performance program for anyone who comes in and wants to self-direct and learn online.

Jake: A lot of the sessions we did (in 2025) were with repeat clients. Eighty percent of our client base is returning year after year. This past year was really special because we actually had a handful of teams we’d worked with the year before and then took a year off come back. They said, “We noticed a dip when we didn’t work with you.” Those relationships have been so paramount for us since Day 1, so we’re leaning into those relationships and putting our nose to the grindstone (in terms of) quality and accessibility both for our preexisting client base and teams, and for those who don’t have access to an Alex Peavey or a Collin or a Jake in their community. Quality and accessibility are so important.

Why do people want what you’re offering?

Collin: It depends on which group you’re working with. If we’re working with a student-athlete, understanding the high demands on them in the classroom and on the playing field. When you get to a certain level, everyone’s good at their sport. What folks are starting to realize is that it’s the mental game that’s being played. Can you take care of your body when you’re stressed, when you’re fatigued? How can you create opportunities for yourself before you show up? How can you take care of your sleep, your exercise, your nutrition, and then, obviously, the mindfulness piece. I think folks are starting to see the benefits of, all right, we’ve got this brain that controls everything else. Maybe we should look into training that. That’s what we provide: training for the brain, off the field and on the field. Folks continue to come back who are seeing benefits of it, feeling less stressed, less anxious. They’re feeling more focused and dialed in when they’re performing. They’re also sleeping better, so the benefits are plentiful.

Jake: You’re investing in the future. Future leaders is really the game. There was a recent study that 70 or 80 percent of current female CEOs are former athletes, so the connection between leadership, positive impact, and sports is very clear. To invest in this current generation, giving them tools through the vehicle of sports and to develop these tools and habits of collaboration and excellence is so powerful. The more you practice it in sports, the more prepared you are for your first interview, for that big moment, or for being there for somebody when life gets hard. It’s not going to throw us off when we realize we’re only two or three slow exhales away from responding wisely. We can really continue to invest and enhance the toolbox of this current generation. Our belief is very strong that the next several generations will be healthier, more collaborative, more compassionate, and more resilient. We’re really excited about that future that we’re helping build.

So what began as a discussion between colleagues has blossomed into something spectacular?

Collin: When I was hired in 2012, I was a certified strength coach, I had a business degree, and I was a football coach. Everyone said, ‘You have to meet Alex. What he’s doing with the mental side, with mindfulness, you’d absolutely love him.’ I got to know him simply through saying, “Hey, I hear you’re doing great things with this mindfulness stuff. I don’t know much about it. It sounds kind of fluffy, but I’d love to learn more about it.”

When Jake came on in 2015 in the Summer Quest office, we would go over and sit in classes with Alex and help him teach. We created this document that we entitled “Dominating Life.” It was just like healthy habits, things that you can look at to help the student-athletes we’re working with, help ourselves, and obviously we then changed that to be more of a mindful approach to life, sports, or whatever. We asked Alex, “Hey, what trainings would you go to?” Then, we knocked all of them out. We coached with him, taught with him, and learned from him and so many others along the way. It’s hard to believe we’ve served 12,000 folks in the past four years. It’s been a lot of fun.

Jake: Since The Peavey Project started in 2021, one common thread that I’ve appreciated most from Alex and working with Collin was that mindfulness is a tool to enhance our performance, but that’s only a very small portion of what this practice is. It’s really a strong, potent form of self-investment that enhances how we show up for others. You see how Alex lives that, and my hope is that every group we’ve ever worked with has been an opportunity for us to lean into that. Let’s invest in ourselves so we can be better suited to serve others from a place of fullness, clarity, and purpose.

~Weldon Bradshaw

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