Two local women have formed the Hive Family Collective with hopes to provide access to resources and support for mothers and families. Their first event is happening Tuesday and they’re calling all soon-to-be and new parents to join them.
After having her second child, Perry Hardy realized that while Park City has a lot going on – there wasn’t a lot of resources for new mothers and their families.
“I really felt like I wasn’t alone in needing support whether it was peer to peer or whether it was finding different providers in the community and thought that creating a hub for all of those providers and parents to find a safe space to learn connect and share all of the joys and challenges of parenthood and so, that’s kind of where the Hive Family Collective was born, I guess,” Hardy said.
Hearing Hardy’s concerns, Sara Hutchinson – who recently started a new business as a certified doula childbirth educator and yoga teacher - collaborated, and the two came up with the idea of the Hive Family Collective…
"I also had realized in this birth that there was a lot going on in Park City but the mommas I was talking to felt like it was a little bit siloed,” said Hutchison. “And about three months ago, Perry reached out to me and I knew Perry from the Ed Foundation, and we had tea and she shared her idea and I have the time and was really, really excited to join in on her efforts so it’s our passion project right now, and it’s free because we’re donating our time and we’re talking to different providers and it seems like everyone we’re talking to is very, very supportive and we’re really excited about the Hive Family Collective.”
Right now, they’re just organizing a monthly speaker series, but they hope that the Hive Family Collective will eventually be more than that.
“We’re starting small – we hope to grow many different programs as we gain momentum,” said Hardy. “Right now, we’re starting with a monthly speaker series – we hope to also provide some peer to peer support groups for new moms. We’ve been talking with tons of other providers.”
And Hutchison added, “maybe we create a local resource guide and we imagine that if we grow, we all want to grow all together – we don’t want to do the work that someone else is doing… For instance we were talking with the Summit Pediatric office and they do so much work with the new moms so we want to support other group that they support. And so, we imagine that we can gather the resources and gather the people and also build the community of new mommas – and dads – this is a family collective.”
Both Hardy and Hutchison will kick of the series – and will grow it from there. They do have some ideas for upcoming speakers. And know that there are lot of locals to learn from.
“We have been talking with Joanna Kahn – who founded the Mats Practioners and she’s a physical therapist specializing in postpartum physical therapy and whole body physical therapy,” Hardy said. “We’ve been talking with a lot of other providers as well within the community and we will be announcing our future list of speakers in the coming week.”
Hutchison added, “utchison Hutchisonwe’re thinking of a sleep specialist, a sex therapist, we’re thinking of anyone who has a compelling story – we invite them to reach out.”
For more information you can email them at hivefamilycollective@gmail.com or check out their Facebook page. For now, the plan is to continue the speaker series on the 2nd Tuesday of each month at the Blair Education Center from 4:30 to 6 p.m.
