STAY IN THE LIGHT

You might not always feel like it, but the future is looking bright. “How so?” you might wonder? Well, the truth is that light is everywhere—even in the darkness. Now that the season of light is upon us, we are pleased to welcome new initiatives, new interns, new solvency strategies, and the same ole sense of love and compassion that MoM musters in every circumstance.

At the Museum of Motherhood, we do not measure brightness by ease or comfort. We measure it by resilience, by care, and by the quiet, radical persistence of families who keep showing up for one another—even when systems fall short. And there are real reasons to believe the future of health, wellness, and education for families in America is bending toward something more humane.

Across the country, we are seeing renewed attention to maternal mental health, long overlooked and underfunded, now finally entering public conversation, clinical practice, and community-based solutions. Peer support models, trauma-informed care, and culturally responsive services are gaining traction—not because they are trendy, but because families have demanded better. Knowledge is catching up to lived experience.

In education, learning is expanding beyond classrooms and credentials. Intergenerational education, museum-based learning, and community storytelling are increasingly recognized as legitimate, powerful ways people grow and heal. Families are reclaiming learning as something that happens through curiosity, creativity, and connection—not just compliance. Museums like MoM are uniquely positioned to hold this work: part classroom, part commons, part sanctuary.

Health and wellness, too, are being redefined. More families are questioning productivity-at-all-costs culture and returning to basics: rest, touch, creativity, food, movement, and meaning. Caregiving—once invisible—is becoming a subject of research, advocacy, and art. While this shift is far from complete, the cracks in the old model are letting light in.

At MoM, we see hope in the next generation. Our interns arrive not just with skills, but with clarity: they understand that care is infrastructure, that history shapes health, and that equity is not optional. They are asking better questions—and insisting on better answers.

We also see hope in sustainability: in new funding models, shared resources, and collaborative strategies that allow cultural institutions to survive without abandoning their values. Solvency, when grounded in ethics, becomes a form of care itself—ensuring that spaces for truth, tenderness, and transformation remain open.

The future will not be bright because it is easy. It will be bright because people continue to choose love, compassion, and responsibility for one another—especially in hard times. That is the work of m/otherhood. That is the work of this museum. And that is the light we are committed to tending, together.

YEAR END FUNDRAISING INITIATIVE

As our team celebrates the season of gratitude – I am thankful for a great year, awesome accomplishments, & for you!

MoM reaches people where they live, work and play through our family-friendly exhibits and education. We are Tampa Bay’s first and only women’s museum, devoted to the art, science and herstory of American women, mothers and families.

If you haven’t visited us yet, please do. We are virtual and in real time offering tours, exhibits, conversations, education, friendship, community, cultural connections and more since 2003~!

Martha JOY Rose, Founding Director

2025 MoM HIGHLIGHTS

• Welcomed new board members: Amy Collins, Libby Hopkins, Meagan Welch, Regan Moss, and Tracie Williams to the MoM Executive Board.
• Expanded our program team to include Jamika Rollins, Karimah Henry, Rachael Somerman, Dre Marie, LouAnne Hardtke, Amanda Bartles, Darlene Ceron, Lizzie Zacharis, and Susie Beltran.
• Offered weekly free lactation consultations with Baby Café for breastfeeding support, advice, tools and conversation.
• Partnered with Tampa Bay Period Pantry and Mutual Aid Choices Pantry to make products available to those seeking information, education, and free accessible items related to periods, birth control, and women’s health.
• Produced Black Maternal Health mini-conference, addressing Black maternal health disparities and bringing together over 60 providers, birth workers, and funders to rally around community-led solutions.
• Rocked out at Mamapalooza Family Festival with over 500 attendees and performances by local woman-founded and woman fronted bands.
• Convened over 70 academics, artist, and students at the 20^th Anniversary Academic & Arts Conference, hosted at USF St. Pete.
• Implemented two photography and sculptural exhibits by local artists and welcomed two international artists, Julienne Doko and Raisa Nosova, for performances and mural works. (Huge gratitude to both amazing women) as well as student exhibits about ‘Caring St Pete’.
• Secured over $50,000 in NEW grant funding through Community Foundation of Tampa Bay, Foundation for Healthy St. Pete, and the City of St. Pete.
• See more about our programs via our updated online calendar.

MoM is celebrating a highly successful 2025, and we are on track to reach an annual fundraising goal of $100,000. This fundraising goal not only supports the ongoing work of MoM but makes it possible for our team to secure a permanent home in Tampa Bay and bring on paid staff members to expand our footprint as the one and only international destination museum devoted to the art, science, and history of women, m/others & families.

I hope you will consider making a tax-deductible year-end gift. 100% of your gift supports the longevity of the first and only museum of motherhood in the world. Our year-end giving campaign builds on all the success of 2025, see our donations and progress in real-time here.

WAYS TO SUPPORT MoM

Make a tax-deductible donation online, via check, Donor Advised Fund, or wire transfer

Mailing Address: MoM Art Annex, 538 28th St. N. St. Petersburg, Florida 33713

Make checks payable to “Museum of Motherhood”

Email mary@mommuseum.org for DAF and wire transfer details

Forward this email to a family member or friend to make a donation to MoM

Pledge a corporate sponsorship for one of MoM’s events

Renew your membership to MoM

Secure an employer matching gift when donating to MoM

Host a fundraiser to benefit MoM

WELCOME Zixin Shang (Cassie)

This project focuses on the intersection of reproductive technology and cross-cultural perspectives, exploring how artificial intelligence is reshaping future experiences of “procreation” and “motherhood.”

As an artist and curator from East Asia now living in the United States, I aim to reflect on the different understandings of the female body and reproduction in Eastern and Western societies .And I will consider whether the intervention of AI technology may shift these cultural differences.

Through collaborations with artists of diverse nationalities, I will explore how humanity’s understanding of “motherhood” and “identity” evolves artistically when technology intervenes in the creation of life and the construction of identity. These artworks will employ varied materials and techniques to depict artists’ visions of future reproduction, presenting abstract perspectives on the possibilities of human evolution. They will amplify the reproductive relationship between motherhood and living organisms for the audience.

This project aims to connect individual memories with global shifts, inviting audiences to reconsider: In an era of rapid globalization and artificial intelligence advancement, are the identity and meaning of motherhood also undergoing transformation? How do people confront the long- standing biological relationships of life being overturned amidst the relentless march of evolutionary progress?