Tag: localtopia

2026 Calendar & MoM Membership Cooperative

Post author By MOM
Post date January 14, 2026

A new year is unfolding at the Museum of Motherhood—and it’s already full of momentum. 🌱 From board leadership and strategy sessions to festivals, conferences, and community celebrations, 2026 is shaping up to be a year of action, reflection, and collective joy. Our latest blog lays out what’s ahead, why it matters, and how you can be part of it—from January goal-setting to a fall focus on maternal mental health. Take a look, mark your calendar, and step into the year with us.

2026 Scheduled Dates:

January 14th Board Meeting and Kick-off for 2026 New Year Goals & Implementation
January 20th Implementation of 6 month strategy
February 14th Localtopia
March – Women’s History Month
April – Q2 Board Meeting
March 26 Leadership workshop with dinner for all team
March 27-29 MoM Conference
May 3 is MaMaPaLooZa
June 2nd Board Building Party – Barbara & Mary B-Day
July – Pride & Q3 Board Meeting – vote in new members
August – Hang on in The Factory to continue the good work
September – Mini-Conference Maternal Mental Health

MoM Membership Cooperative

We are delighted to invite you to become part of something special at the Museum of Motherhood—our Cooperative Membership Store & Shared Creative Space.

This is more than a retail visibility opportunity. It’s a living, breathing community where artists, educators, healers, organizers, and makers gather to share their talents, connect with the public, and support one another in a values-driven, cooperative environment.

Welcome to MoM’s Cooperative Space

Bring your art, expertise, objects, ideas, and meetings into a shared home where creativity and care are centered. By joining, you’ll collaborate in a vibrant real-world space while engaging with MoM’s audiences during events like Second Saturday Art Walk, Sunday Assembly, and MaMaPaLooZa Festival—as your schedule allows as well as during weekly hours.

What Participation Looks Like

Join MoM with a $30 annual membership
Sign up for 3-hour (short) or 6-hour (long) shifts—or more—during a 40-hour week
(See Events & Calendar at MOMmuseum.org)
Greet visitors warmly and direct them to MoM’s signup portal
Share and sell your work, services, or expertise
You keep 100% of your sales
If selling work by others, simply direct buyers to the item’s QR payment code and log the sale in the receipt book

What MoM Provides

One six-foot table, chairs, easels, and working space
Storage under tables (bring a labeled tote if you’d like to leave items onsite)
The option to leave onsite:
- An 8 × 10 display with QR code
- A notebook or portfolio of your work
- Up to ¼ of a six-foot table of objects and one easel when you’re not present
  (Tables are shared among four cooperators)
Promotion of you and your work through MoM social media using graphics and info you provide

Why This Matters

By managing the space while you’re in it, you help keep MoM accessible, welcoming, and alive—while gaining visibility, community, and a meaningful place to share what you do best. If you believe in collaboration over competition, community over isolation, and creativity rooted in care—we would love to welcome you.

Welcome to MoM’s Cooperative Space. Please bring your art, talents, objects, and meetings. By agreeing to join this initiative you can expect:

Collaborate on a shared real estate for exhibiting and meeting clients and be part of our general audience on Second Saturday Art Walk, Sunday Assembly, MaMaPaLooZa Festival as per your availability with your great talents in exchange for a basic level MoM membership and an agreement to manage the space while you are in it.

How To Participate

Fill out online form online to participate in the Cooperative Membership Store [Click Link Left]

Contact Jamika Rollins regarding your participation: Scheduling@MOMmusem.org

877-711-MOMS (6667) (Lv a message and we will call/text you back)

2606 Fairfield Ave S St Petersburg FL Building 7

DOWNLOAD AGREEMENT PDF

A diverse group of people posing together in front of various informative and artistic wall displays, featuring the phrase 'TOGETHER WE RISE!' prominently at the top. — MoM Team with volunteers at the Museum of Motherhood

MoM Needs Volunteers and Docents

The Museum of Motherhood is more than a museum, it’s a gathering space, a conversation starter, and a love letter to motherhood in all its forms. We’re looking for a friendly, curious, people-loving human to help welcome our community into the space.

Volunteerism is the heartbeat of the Museum of Motherhood. 💛 Our work is powered by people who give their time, skills, care, and creativity to help preserve stories, spark dialogue, and build a more humane future for families. From greeting visitors and supporting events to research, archiving, and advocacy, volunteers make it possible for MoM to keep its doors open, its programs vibrant, and its mission alive. Simply put: we keep going because our community shows up.

What you’ll do:

Greet visitors with warmth and make them feel at home the moment they arrive
Move through the museum, offering gentle, engaging introductions to exhibits and artworks
Spark curiosity, conversation, and connection throughout the space
Support our Mom Shop by sharing the stories behind our merchandise and assisting with sales
Invite visitors to deepen their relationship with the museum through memberships and events
Educate clients about available programs and assist with application processes when necessary
Maintain accurate records of client interactions and service provision in accordance with privacy policies

You might be perfect for this role if you:

Love art, culture, storytelling, and community spaces
Enjoy talking with people and making them feel seen and welcomed
Are comfortable engaging visitors in a relaxed, authentic way
Believe in honoring motherhood, caregiving, and lived experience as powerful cultural forces
Bring positive energy and openness into shared spaces
Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail for record keeping and coordination tasks

This is a role for someone who loves people, ideas, and meaningful work and wants to be part of a mission-driven, creative environment.

If you are interested in being part of our team but are not in a financial situation where you can volunteer, then we have some funds available for onsite docents in-space to greet people during our regular shifts.

Volunteer (we’re grateful if you can) or $17/hour
Flexible, community-centered work
A chance to be part of something special

Job Type: Part-time.

Interested? We’d love to hear from you. CONTACT: Scheduling@MOMmuseum.org

Tags 2026 at the Museum of Motherhood, docents wanter, help wanted, localtopia, mamapalooza, maternal mental health, MOM conference, mom membership, mom membership cooperative store, museum helpers needed, The Factory st pete, Volunteers wanter, womens history month

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OPEN CALL: SUBMISSIONS for a special online publication at MoM for our Mothers’ Day Blog.

Post author By MOM
Post date April 5, 2023

For a limited time only, OPEN CALL : SUBMISSIONS for a special online publication at MoM for our Mother’s Day May Blog. But first, about the photo here at the top of the page. We inherited an ugly cement wall. What did we do? Make it beautiful! Thank you Batya for your gorgeous residency and ongoing mural work, now viewable in the annex gardens. Read more at the bottom of the blog!

Submit a story about your mother. 1,500-2,000 words or poem (any length).

Our team will review all entries and we will select one special story, one runner up, and one poem for publication online for our May Mother’s Month Blog, social media and Newsletter issue.

The prize is $50 first place only / Poem is a separate award $25

We know you are ALL winners and we are excited to hear your creativity and legacy productions.

Submit by April 30th midnight via email by midnight. Include Title and Bio with Submission in word document: INFO@MOMmuseum.org

THE MONTH OF MARCH RECAP

Community is where it’s at – even as technology rises, we must remember our humanity, our earth bodies, and our mother planet. HAPPY EARTH DAY IN APRIL!

March was busy with gatherings focused on food health, motherhood, sisterhood, meditation, poetry, and outdoor mural making. Thanks to Jeff Herman, Leslie Culbertson, and Yusuke Ouchie from Creative Grape, and gratitude to Localtopia, Winter in the Woods, AEHK Studio Tour, Tombolo Books, YesChefVillage, Gloria Muñoz, our Conference Attendees, Mothers’ Group and MoM Facilitators: Its been a GREAT season for MoM.

Over the course of the past year, we have joined in events with direct engagement opportunities equalling 40,000 + people.

We have partnered with groups from ages 1-80 yrs old that include people in recovery, local high school students, housing insecure individuals, and those seeking education on the subject of healthy food to feminist studies. Those smaller groups, have totaled in the hundreds.

What Next?

Where are the women’s stories and spaces? We are only 10 % of school text books and 13% of museum exhibits.

Our lives are an inspiration. They are a miracle. They are each and everyone great. How can we illuminate the vacuum, fill the voice, reverberate with intention?

Help us honor these stories. Help us keep going. Help us be Visible, Solvent, and Celebrated. We Thank you! We are you! We need you to thrive! Together we are strong, together we rise, together we love. Help us continue our work by becoming a legacy donor.

DONATE

THE ANNUAL ACADEMIC & ARTS CONFERENCE ROCKED!

REPRODUCTIVE LANDSCAPES– The conference saw participants from England, Australia, South Africa, Canada, USA, Poland, South America, Israel, Spain, and Ireland. Videos and papers to come. Find out more by accessing the Journal of Mother Studies (JourMS) and upcoming announcements about these scholarly works. The CFP for the Journal of Mother Studies is open through April 30th. SUBMIT.

Here are a few concepts to mull over (from my notes):

Can we mother a ghost? Rebecca Marcelina Gimeno

Not every pregnancy results in the birth of a child – Laura Bissell

Human care is anchored in communal activities – Sara Sudhoff

Mothering is invisible – Kate Golding

Batya Weinbaum, b. 1952, is a Jewish American visual artist and award-winning writer from Cleveland Heights, OH and Floyd, VA, and artist-in- residence at MOM Dec 3 2022-Mar 31, 2023. Her first mosaic art project was a feminist installation of fertility and warrior goddesses, Feminina Sube, Isla Mujeres, 2013-2020. A film about this magical shrine to the goddess can be seen on YouTube by typing in Dr. Batya Weinbaum. She got her doctorate at University of Massachusetts at Amherst, founded the journal Femspec, and has spoken frequently at Radical Feminist Perspectives of Women’s Declaration International. More of her art can be seen at goddessvibe.org.

Special Shout Out to Brittany DeNucci & All Our Fab Volunteers!

Special shout out to Brittany DeNucci who stepped in to run tech for us a MoM during the conference. She’s also been hard at work editing the conference videos. We are so grateful for all Brittany’s contributions. THANK YOU to all our incredible interns, volunteers & team members!

KEEP ROCKIN’ IT!

Love, Love, Love,

Martha Joy Rose, Director

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Localtopia, V-Day, YesChefVillage, and More…

Post author By MOM
Post date February 14, 2023

Today is V-Day. It’s a time for lovers, a time for mothers, and a time for social change. Valentine’s Day, the holiday, is an age-old tradition. According to historians, Valentine’s Day originated in ancient Rome, stemming from a Pagan celebration called the feast of Lupercalia, a festival of fertility and purification. NPR states:

“The Roman romantics “were drunk and naked.” According to Noel Lenski, a religious studies professor at Yale University, “Young women would line up for the men to hit them.” They believed this would make them fertile. The brutal fete included a matchmaking lottery in which young men drew the names of women from a jar. The couple would then be coupled up for the duration of the festival — or longer, if the match was right.”
Source: https://www.npr.org/2011/02/14/133693152/the-dark-origins-of-valentines-day

The festival was made more civilized through subsequent interpretations. Ultimately, the pagan influences were reduced, Christianity took over, and the story of the martyred St. Valentine preaching in Rome was added. The holiday took on new meaning; Less debauched, still fertility, or love-based, and romanticized by people like Shakespeare, it ultimately became the cultural and commercial event we recognized today.

For those romantics who might be focused on learning to love themselves, there are other lessons to be had. For example, coupledom is no longer top priority for some Gen Z and millennials. According to The Knot, post-pandemic trends are leaning towards prioritizing health and wellness over serial dating. In fact, according to statistics 75% of Gen Z are single as opposed to 44% of millennials who are married (source). Additionally, focusing on social movements like BLM and green-sustainability rank high on the list of priorities.

“Through the pandemic, a lot of people have prioritized wellness, particularly in terms of their physical fitness, and their mental fitness, and their consumption habits.”
Source: https://www.theknot.com/content/dating-trends

I guess we have come a long way from the debauched Roman holiday of old. In fact, now we even have pushback with organizations like Eve Ensler’s V-Day, One Billion Rising, an organization begun with “a mass action to end violence against women in human history.” The movement addresses the “staggering statistic that 1 in 3 women will be beaten or raped during her lifetime.”

Today, MoM rises, along with One Billion Rising to honor 10 years of One Billion Rising and 25 years of V-Day. We join in the campaign today in 2023, which has been declared a year of INSPIRATION and ASPIRATION.

According to V-Day, this will be “A year of storytelling, building communities, strengthening solidarity, sharing dreams, planting trees, creating art, honoring women and the earth, and of dancing.”

It is the year MoM will continue “to ENVISION and CREATE new ways of being, seeing, living, loving and connecting. Of raising consciousness and deepening understanding. So that our freedom, our future, is rooted in truth, love, community, earth and body.” (Source: One Billion Rising).

To that end, join our collaboration with YesChefVillage, bringing free, healthy food to communities seeking access to dining resources and connection. This Friday, Feb. 17th, 6-7:30PM will be our second dinner with Chef Omaka and his team. You can write us INFO@MOMmuseum.org to attend, fill out the RSVP form on our website, or just show up!

Then, Saturday, Feb. 18th, come see us at Localtopia in St. Petersburg, FL, a celebration of all things local. Our booth will be in area #7, The Family Village, and we will be sharing more love, more connections, and more information and education about our mission locally. Today, LOVE EVERYBODY! Love, MoM!