Tag: fundraiser

Categories
Activism Art Birth Blog breastfeeding Caregiving Classes Conferences Education Featured Feminism Fl Fundraiser health home MOM Art Annex motherhood The Factory, St Pete

#GivingTuesday: Mothers Give Everyday: what Rosalynn Carter said about caregiving

“There are only four kinds of people in the world—those who have been caregivers, those who are currently caregivers, those who will be caregivers, and those who will need caregivers.” Rosalynn Carter.

What is a m/other, if not someone who sees to the wellbeing of her family whenever and if-ever possible? From birth on, the person who both gave us life and also the person who often sees to our care and upbringing are forever linked through body, mind, and psyche to the one’s whom they are connected.

Through our biologies, our relationships and our care-work, we are all connected in unfathomable ways

Our children’s cells live on in our brains. Whether we are caregiving forward towards our offspring or adopted children, or our neighborhood, or caring backward for a parent or grandparent , the circle of life involves constant attention to our collective well-being.

Research shows women who live near each other affect the other’s reproductive cycles. It is also scientifically proven that we share more than just our pregnant bodies with our offspring. “Women have microchimeric cells both from their mother, as well as from their own pregnancies” (Link). These remain in our bodies throughout our lives. We are indeed present in not only our physical reality but also our energetic one.

We honor the work of Rosalynn Carter and of all the mothers and others who have devoted large portions of their lives to caring for others: this can mean mental health care, infant care, healthcare, domestic care, professional care, partner care, community care, parent care and even environmental and pet care.

MoM needs your help as we nurture the nurturers and empower the future caregivers of the world

At the Museum of Motherhood we work everyday, round the clock to share the art, science and herstory of mothers. In September, we moved to a new 1,000 sq. ft venue in the arts district of St. Petersburg, Florida!

With over a dozen volunteers who reach thousands of individuals each month, we require the dollars to stay open, accessible, and free to the public.

WE NEED YOUR HELP!

Fundraiser Museum of Motherhood end of year 2023

Our ‘Mothers Give Everyday’ Campaign is a call to raise $30K:

Can you help us pay the rent and utilities in 2024 at our new venue?

Can you help us make our website ADA compliant.

Will you add a name to our Tribute page?

MAKE A LEGACY DONATION IN THE NAME OF SOMEONE YOU LOVE ON OUR TRIBUTE PAGE! Donate here [Link at bottom) or on our GoFundMe page!

Join this campaign in memory of your mother, grandmother, and those people you hold near & dear: the blended families, the non-traditional families and the individuals that have nurtured you. Or, honor a professional who has impacted your life by taking care of your reproductive health: the midwives, obstetricians, nurses, doulas, and pediatricians. The teachers, aunties, and other mothers who have and are impacting the future leaders of our world!

After 20 years of creating conferences, working with students around the world, mentoring young women (and men), and creating a safe and then significant space for family members, we have landed:

HELLO ST PETERSBURG WE HAVE JOINED THE CITY OF MUSEUMS!

Make a tax deductible donation in any amount to the MOM Art Annex 591c3 for the Museum of Motherhood .

MoM loves you and values your participation.

Remember there is only one degree of separation between YOU and MOM.

DONATE NOW / Honor Somone on our TRIBUTE PAGE (optional)
Categories
Art Education Events Featured Feminism Fl Fundraiser health History International Media MOM Art Annex motherhood

May is Mother’s Month: Be the Light, Fundraisers & Reasons That Matter

Reasons that matter:

YOU MATTER!

YOUR LOVED ONES MATTER!

OUR PLANET AND WELL BEING MATTER!

It is so easy to lose focus and lose the light, especially when the weight of responsibility, finances, health, and housing carry such inordinate heaviness. Everyday life is feels so complicated. We slog along with a mountain of problems. How can we feel joyous? How can a museum make a difference?

First the good news: Life on earth has always been a challenge. In fact, a LOT of the time LIFE IS HARD. But, each of us has a spark inside. A little bit of light channeled from the solar system of which we are a part. That illumination is what makes each of us incredibly special. Here at MoM, we focus on the light. In fact our motto is informing and inspiring lives. We do that even as we acknowledge all of the issues and challenges facing individuals thinking about becoming parents and as we attempt to reconcile past difficulties with a transformed present.

How do we do that? Every person who steps into our museum experience has an opportunity to discover something amazing about themselves. We sit at the intersection of an enormous energetic infrastructure that connects the past, present, and future of women, mothers, and families. We pride ourselves on a commitment to art, culture, science, history, and activism. We are absolutely devoted to a legacy project that includes all of us. M/otherhood never ends. We are all part of the great cycle. Please join us as we grow together!

We have THREE IMPORTANT INITIATIVES THIS MONTH!

Invite 300 new MoM Members to Join Us: $30 a year – we will mail you a welcome packet with our friendship bracelets and a code for events with special access to exclusive online content. [CLICK]

Join our MOM Directory to share your business, organization, or service with the world! [CLICK]

Help us finalize our purchase of the Mother Tree sculpture. We are so close! Only $4,000 dollars left to go, then we can add her to our forever collection. Donate now, please. [CLICK]

*Sign up in May for a special photography session locally in St. Pete from St.JeanCreative and they will donate 10% back to the MOM Art Annex 501c3 non-profit. [CLICK]

We will announce the winners of the ‘About My Mother’ writing contest in time for Mothers’ Day! Look for a special blog about that!

Join the Museum of Motherhood this May 2023
Categories
AEHK Art Birth Caregiving Featured Feminism MOM Art Annex motherhood Spiritual Motherhood st petersburg

Re-encouters ; How are we connected?

During the month of October, Polly Wood came to St. Petersburg, Florida to reflect, make art, and build a nest. More specifically, after ushering her daughter off to college, she realized there was an opportunity to commemorate this significant rite of passage. She came to MOM to build an empty nest.

On top of Polly’s many accomplishments, she is in the process of expanding her career as a musician and artist. She is also in the midst of searching for the threads of the next part of her journey. I didn’t realize the relevancy of the timing of her visit until she arrived on site. We were both engaged in creating big life changes. While I anticipated that I was doing her a kindness by offering her a residency, the opposite was actually true. Polly came with gifts.

The first time I met Polly she performed original music on drums and vocals at the academic ARM Conference in Canada in the early two thousands. I bonded with her instantly. Then, she participated in more performances at the MOM Conference in Manhattan, and I subsequently visited her at her childhood home in Ithaca, New York.

Polly’s first exhibition at MOM, over a dozen years ago, was an online presentation about the Sacred Feminine which launched our first Museum website. In it, she wrote about maternal labor, Goddesses, reproductive rights, and trees. Our relationship roots run deep.

In this online exhibit with the museum, Polly articulated the significance of trees within her own vision of the sacred feminine. She wrote: “Trees are symbolic, metaphoric and metaformic providing relationship, meaning and inspiration.  Cross-culturally, trees are associated with the feminine principle, as well as with knowledge, life, cycles, time, and the connecting matrix between earth, water and sky.”

She elaborated on the relationship between trees and the ways in which “trees are deeply embedded in human consciousness and, physiologically, embodied within the womb of pregnant mothers.”

Her descriptions of the manner in which the placenta is “the only organ in a human that grows when needed – in order to support, nourish and sustain a human life.” Images of the “umbilical cord representing the trunk, and the exposed blood vessels acting as branches,” were included in these early presentations.

When she made the commitment to visit recently, the synchronicity of her willingness to devote time and attention at the MOM Art Annex brought a beautiful focus to our own growing momentum, which includes a search for a new Executive Fundraising Board, as well as an ongoing fundraiser for purchasing Helen Hiebert’s Mother Tree for our permanent collection.

Over the course of the two weeks, we shared conversations, sourced materials, and made art. The affiliation I felt over what we have shared through the years, as well as the ways in which both of us have continued to grow, does indeed remind me of the unfolding branches of the intertwined sacred feminine, which I am fortuitous to witness within the walls of the museum, now flanked by one magical empty nest, crafted by this soul sister, Polly Wood (Pictured above and below this text).

There are stretches where time appears to inch forward incrementally. Movement can be difficult to perceive. This can be true for people, landscapes, and even plants. Tree and forest seedlings take anywhere between twenty and one hundred and fifty years to fully develop. Growth appears almost imperceptible. In the case of Polly and myself, so much has happened since our last encounter, but the last two weeks felt comfortably familiar. We picked up right where we left off.

The photos shared here, of the nest she built, the Mother Tree, and our own entwinement represent a personal celebration of life unfolding, our individual development, and maturation, as well as the manner in which we are inextricably linked through our art, womanhood, and our m/otherness. In each of these experiences, we are born anew. First in conception, then inception, then again and again in the counterpoint of connection. EnJOY! And, please consider joining MOM in some capacity or other, either by donating to the Mother Tree (Link below) or joining us in our ongoing efforts to expand.

Together we are strong. Together we are marvelous. Life is a circle. We are the trees. ~ Martha Joy Rose

Go Fund Me CAMPAIGN

Categories
Featured

JOIN US * BUILDING MOMENTUM * MOTHER TREE

Please join us on the journey to bring the Mother Tree to the Museum of Motherhood permanently

Welcome to the launch of our acquisition campaign. Help us purchase the Mother Tree for our permanent collection at the Museum of Motherhood!

We believe the Mother Tree is an inspiring new addition to our permanent collection at the MOM Art Annex in Florida. Her transformative nature signals the launch of our new three-point expansion plan that includes increasing acquisitions, engaging new Executive Fundraising Board members, and initiating the ‘Pregnant with Possibilities’ Building Campaign.

Why the Dress, Why Now, and Why Go Fund Me?

The Mother Tree sculpture is a seven-foot high illuminated dress made of paper and thread, conceived by Colorado artist Helen Hiebert. The power of her presence is inspirational.

Her long roots are crocheted strands of yarn fashioned by community members who have embraced their connection with each other, to their children, and the whole human family.

Resplendent with metaphors, the Mother Tree stands as a testimony to the bond between so many things: mothers and their children, the earth and her inhabitants, or even the relationship between the future vision of the Museum of Motherhood and the building we’ve yet to realize; the people we’ve yet to meet, and the partners we’re looking forward to collaborating with.

After consulting with numerous fundraising sites, we determined the Go Fund Me platform was the simplest to implement and it seamlessly integrates with our existing non-profit PayPal account.

Donations will go directly to our Motherhood Foundation 501c3 non-profit and are tax deductible.

We need $25,000 to purchase Mother Tree. Please help us – THANK YOU! That’s $20 per person, over the course of 270 days, or 5 people per day donating a minimum of $20 (more is better) PLEASE DONATE NOW!

PLEASE DONATE TO THE MOTHER TREE
Categories
Featured

“Listen to Your Mother” Event 5/8

Listen to Your MotherIn preparation for our Mother’s Day week of events, we have been announcing the lineup of special guests and speakers that are participating in our Barnes and Noble fundraiser. We are excited to announce the content of our May 8 reading to be held at the Upper West Side Barnes and Noble location (at 82nd and Broadway). On Friday, May 8 we will welcome select authors from Listen to Your Mother, a compilation of essays from authors of different genders, ages, and races that give voice to the kaleidoscopic nature of motherhood. This event is in time with our book fair. Anyone who purchases books from May 6-15 through barnesandnoble.com and uses the code 11455805 will see a portion of their sale go to the Museum of Motherhood.

For more information about Listen to Your Mother, please check out this press release submitted by Amy Wilson:

PRESS RELEASE FOR MUSEUM OF MOTHERHOOD 5/8 “LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER” EVENT

  • “In 2010, Ann Imig organized a live-staged reading event in Madison, WI, to bring together her community—mothers and non-mothers alike—and provide a forum for a diversity of voices to share their personal stories. These readers spoke honestly and openly about motherhood, family, childhood, and parenting. And so, the Listen to Your Mother movement was born. This one event quickly grew into an annual national performance sensation, with nearly 40 nationwide events scheduled for May 2015. Now, in LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER: What She Said Then, What We’re Saying Now (G.P. Putnam’s Sons; April 7, 2015; $25.95), Imig brings to the page what she helped bring to the stage five years ago with this collection of 56 candid, funny, poignant, unexpected, and soul-bearing essays. The contributors to this powerful anthology bravely share their stories, ranging from hilarious to heartbreaking, showcasing the experiences of ordinary people from a broad spectrum of racial, gender, and age backgrounds. With a roster of writers that includes first time essayists and New York Times-bestselling authors Jennifer Weiner, Jenny Lawson and others, LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER reflects our diverse contemporary lifestyles and rapidly changing definitions of motherhood.”
  • AUTHORS PRESENT THAT NIGHT WITH ESSAYS IN THE BOOK INCLUDE
    • PATTY CHANG ANKER is the author of SOME NERVE: Lessons Learned While Becoming Brave which Oprah.com calls “Downright inspiring,” is a Parents Magazine “Mom Must Read” and a Books for a Better Life Award Finalist. Her writing has appeared in O Magazine, Dr Oz The Good LIfe, WallStreetJournal.com and NPR,org. She blogs regularly for PsychologyToday.com‘s anxiety section and was named a Good Housekeeping “Blogger We Love” and a Circle of Moms Top 25 Funny Mom for her own blog, Facing Forty Upside Down. When she’s not speaking or leading workshops on facing fears she can be found chasing her two daughters across Westchester County. @PattyChangAnker www.pattychanganker.com
    • KATHY CURTO teaches Writing at Montclair State University and The Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College.  Her work has been published in Talking Writing, Junk, The Inquisitive Eater, The Asbury Park Press, Italian Americana, VIA-Voices in Italian Americana, Lumina, The Mom Egg and Splash of Red.  Kathy has shared her stories with audiences across the metropolitan area, in Washington DC and in the beautiful town of Erice on the island of Sicily and has also been a featured guest essayist on NPR.   In 2012 she was selected as one of the cast members of the first NYC Listen to Your Mother show.  Kathy lives in the Hudson Valley with her husband and their four children.  Please visit her website: kathycurto.com.
    • EDWARD MCCANN Is a writer whose features and essays have been published in national magazines and literary journals.  A contributing editor for Country Living magazine, Ed has also written the text for several published books. He worked nearly a decade as an award-winning television writer and producer, originating a weekly broadcast magazine show and collaborating on a series of documentaries and special news reports.  At The Culinary Institute of America, Ed spent a year creating instructional videos for students and for the hospitality industry, then partnered with designer Richard Kollath to collaborate on publishing projects and form their new design company, Kollath McCann Creative Services.
    • BARBARA PATRICK passionate owner of Bitty Birdie Design, is a quilter and fabric artist who lovingly turns vibrant fabrics into keepsakes of many types.  She is also a wife and mother to three children in three different schools in Newtown, CT.  Barb functions at two speeds — efficiently OCD or asleep.  This is Barb’s debut into weaving words together for all the world to see.  Connect with Barb at BittyBirdie.com.
    • AMY WILSON is the author of When Did I Get Like This? (HarperCollins, Target “Emerging Author” selection) and Mother Load, a one-woman show which toured to 16 cities nationwide after its hit run off-Broadway.  As an actor, Amy also co-starred in The Last Night of Ballyhoo on Broadway, appeared as a series regular on two sitcoms (NBC’s Daddio and ABC’s Norm), and has guest starred in many other TV shows and films. She has written for magazines like Redbook and Parenting, and websites like CNN, NPR, and The New York Times. Blog: whendidigetlikethis.com.

Arranged by: Jenny Nigro, MoM Online Intern

Categories
Featured

Meet Laura Fuentes on May 9 at the Upper West Side Barnes and Noble!

laura fuentes imageContinuing from our post last week about the programming that we have going on during the week leading up to Mother’s Day, we’re pleased to showcase the event that will be held on Saturday, May 9. As with the Mother Egg Review event we mentioned in our last post, the Museum of Motherhood will emcee a series of mother-centric appearances and readings at the Upper West Side Barnes and Noble (at 82nd and Broadway) from May 6-10. These events coincide with a fundraiser to benefit the museum, hosted by B & N. You may have seen this posted on other parts of our site, but just in case you missed it, here’s the skinny on the fundraiser: for the week of May 6-15, anyone who purchases books through barnesandnoble.com and uses the code 11455805 will see a portion of their sale go to the Museum of Motherhood. On Saturday, May 9, we will welcome Laura Fuentes, renown children’s wellness expert, to the Upper West Side Barnes and Noble from 1-3PM.

Laura is an author, speaker, recipe developer, entrepreneur, and expert in the field of family nutrition. She is the creator and founder of MOMables, an online resource that offers fun and creative ideas for planning kids’ school lunches. She is the host of MOMables Radio, a podcast available on iTunes, a columnist for the Huffington Post, a purveyor of useful how-tos on her YouTube channel, and the author of two must-have recipe books for parents everywhere: The Best Homemade Kids’ Lunches on the Planet and The Best Homemade Snacks on the Planet. Additionally, Laura speaks nationally on a wide range of topics, including family food, children’s health, school lunch policy, and business. She holds a degree in Global Economics and a Master’s of Business Administration. A common thread among these ventures, Laura is “committed to helping parents make real food happen in their households by sharing easy recipes and quick tips.” Laura is a native of Spain and the mother of three.

Contributed by: Jenny Nigro, MoM Online Intern

 

Categories
Featured

The Mom Egg Review and Marjorie Tesser

Marjorie Tesser photoThere is a lot in store for the Museum of Motherhood over the next couple of months! We’re excited to share the events and projects we have planned leading up to Mother’s Day with you in our upcoming blog entries (including last week’s post about the 2015 conference titled “New Maternalisms” to be held on May 2). We hope that you will share these happenings with your communities and join us for these mother-centric plans.

This week, we’re profiling the Mom Egg Review, which will be celebrated at the Upper West Side Barnes and Noble location at Broadway and W 82nd St on Wednesday, May 7 from 7-9PM. The night will feature readings from select contributors to the collection. And who better to explain the purpose and vision of the Mom Egg Review than its editor, Marjorie Tesser?

For those of you who don’t know her, Marjorie Tesser is a poet and editor of the Mom Egg Review, an independent annual print collection of stories (both fiction and non-), poetry, and art that embraces motherwork. An attorney by training, she can also count editor and entrepreneur as her callings. In addition to editing the Mom Egg Review, Marjorie was also the editor of a compilation of poems called Bowery Women and co-editor of Estamos Aqui: Poems by Migrant Farmworkers. She is the author of two books of poems, The Important Thing Is and The Magic Feather.

Of the Mom Egg Review, Marjorie writes:

Mom Egg Review publishes poetry, fiction, and non-fiction by writers who are mothers or who write about motherhood.

There’s a school of thought in modern literature that the personal narrative is dead, that its narrow point of view speaks little to the complexities of today’s world; that those stories all have been told. But not these stories, of women’s lives—of family and motherhood, of culture, work, love, politics, from diverse women’s viewpoints and experience. For thousands of years, the focus of history and art has come from the perspective of males. But women’s stories and insights are important, vital, for our world.

The Museum of Motherhood (along with its non-profit Motherhood Foundation) believes in the importance of these stories, and supports, promotes, nurtures, and celebrates women and their work in an amazing variety of ways—creative, academic, maternal, and entrepreneurial are just some examples, and consistently fosters connections and collaboration.

Our current issue of Mom Egg Review contains a special poetry folio themed “Compassionate Action”. The poems address urgent circumstances, and explore options for overcoming stasis and aligning hands and feet with minds and hearts.

The Museum of Motherhood is the epitome of such action, telling and showing the truths about mothers’ roles and work and value. The media and the established powers, with their tendency to exalt or disparage motherhood, are not exposing these truths. It’s up to us to insure that our stories get told, and heard. We need to support the institutions that that work to ensure that our voices, our experience, views, needs, and realities, are acknowledged.

Contributed by: Jenny Nigro, MoM Online Intern